Cornish enterprise iCareiMove provides practical ageing wellbeing support for people across the county. The help they provide is life changing for their clients – but what is the social value of their work? Commissioners need evidence to justify funding allocations - but how could they use the social return on investment (SROI) methodology to provide this?

The team at iCareiMove contacted Smartline for support – and here’s how we helped.

The Background

iCareiMove provides training for workplaces and individuals across Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. They specialise in the ageing pathway, with a remit covering life stages such as the menopause and ageing with chronic illness. A major part of their work in Cornwall is their falls prevention programme, Move More.

Over Zoom, the team delivers 50 hours of exercise over a 25-week course. Participants include people who have fallen or have a fear of falling, or feel unsteady on their feet for various reasons. The free course covers balance, circulation and endurance, including adapted Tai Chi sessions, and importantly, there’s a social element. Move More is based on the FaME (Falls Management Exercise) programme of evidence-based falls prevention.

 The Opportunity

iCareiMove works with agencies such as Age UK and housing associations, including Coastline. Move More participants can self-refer, however, most of iCareiMove’s work is commissioned, which involves applications and form filling and completing the dreaded “social value” box.

Wanting to be able to understand and demonstrate their social value in order to strengthen funding applications, Nikki Veale, Helen Tite and Pat Taylor approached Smartline. The aims: quantifying iCareiMove’s work, while gaining a better understanding and being able to report on the social impact of their Falls Prevention programme.

 How Smartline Helped

We were able to offer them In Residence support, working with Dr Tim Walker and Dr Ria Poole, alongside Gemma Finnegan from CRCC (Cornwall Rural Community Charity). The In Residence support would develop a Theory of Change & Logic Model for iCareiMove and complete a social value and SROI forecast via the digital tool, Social Value Engine (SVE).

The Logic Model aims to describe how the programme works and identifies its outcomes. Creating the Logic Model was straightforward, partly because of the underpinning FaME model, and also because the team has such a robust monitoring plan in place. However, by going through this modelling exercise, the iCareiMove team was able to clearly see Move More’s strategies and outcomes, leading onto the next stage, establishing a quantifiable social value in monetary terms.

And the results? The SROI calculation shows an astonishing £16.47 return for every £1 spent. Even more incredibly, this is achieved in a payback period of just one month.

As Nikki Veale said in her presentation at the Smartline conference:

“We knew we were good, but we didn’t know we were that good.”

How SROI information can help iCareiMove

The whole In Residence team was delighted with this score. The impact of an accurate, researched SROI score is huge when it comes to applications for commissions, even more so when the value of a programme is so significant.

“It was really positive working with iCareiMove in developing their social value understanding. The team were already very skilled in managing their impact and had excellent maturity in their data gathering. Working with the Smartline Team, the logic model and SROI we completed with iCareiMove will hopefully drive forward their development as an organisation and add value to their understanding of the excellent programmes they deliver.”

-        Gemma Finnegan, Development, Quality and Evaluation Lead at CRCC

Nikki explained that this approach is opening up new opportunities for iCareiMove. Because the team can now demonstrate the value of their work, they can not only deliver their Move More programme to more people and organisations, but can also think about widening their commissioned work.

For example, if they can use data in this way to demonstrate the value of their menopause programmes, they can start to offer those as commissioned services, too. “It’s made us think about data in a new way”, Nikki told the Smartline conference.

“The Smartline team were thrilled to partner with iCareiMove for this project. With an ageing population, the service is vital. Inspiring to learn how simple and regular exercise strategies can lead to transformational results. Thanks to iCareiMove’s established model and a depth of available data, completing the SROI was a relatively straightforward process. To have the work successfully used in a funding application was a great project outcome, and the team seem confident to follow the process to evaluate other services in the future.”

-        Dr Tim Walker, Smartline Research Fellow at University of Exeter

What are the next steps?

What’s next for iCareiMove? Their new-and-improved approach to that Social Value box on the application forms has already resulted in more commissioned work.

"Being able to evidence the incredible social value of £16.47 per £1 spent for our innovative Digital Falls programme has assisted iCareiMove on its journey of expansion. iCareiMove are proud to announce that on 1st July 2023, they will be powered by the Future Fit Group. By working together, Future Fit and iCareiMove are seeking to further amplify the impact that iCareiMove's services and training have, particularly upon the ageing pathway, the management of chronic health conditions and women's health."

-Nikki Veale, Operations Coordinator

Nikki is delighted with how the work with Smartline and Gemma went, and iCareiMove now has a new digital process named: iCareiMove – Digital Social Impact Reporting, to support their important work in the future. And with iCareiMove, it’s always about the individuals they help.

“We are inspired to do better…to improve the health, wellbeing and quality of life for our clients.”

If you would like to know more about iCareiMove and their work with Smartline, watch Nikki’s excellent presentation at the Smartline conference.

Who is involved?

This Smartline project was funded by European Regional Development Funds (ERDF). Smartline’s Dr Tim Walker and Dr Ria Poole worked with Gemma Finnegan from CRCC to support Nikki Veale, Helen Tite and Pat Taylor from iCareiMove.