We help you improve the impact of your social value through grounded, strategic cross-sector insights into your business’ ESG.
Why Choose Connect Local?
Utilising over two decades of experience within our cross-sector network, Connect Reading, we co-design strategic and impactful social value delivery within your business.
Services we provide
An overview of the Connect Local portfolio of services.
Bespoke Consulting
Taking the time to understand the ESG aims of our business clients, or researching local challenges that face our public sector clients, we are open to supporting you with your strategy and delivery development.
Bespoke Consulting
Taking time to understand the ESG goals of our clients, researching local areas and supporting strategy and delivery of social value.
Consulting which gets to the heart of social value
We take time to get to know our business and public sector clients, researching your ESG goals and identifying other opportunities and challenges within neighbouring sectors.
We can offer social value development support, work with internal teams to develop Social Value Policies and other bespoke work on developing your social value offer in contracts.
Team Challenges
Unlike other corporate volunteering services, our link with cross-sector network Connect Reading ensures your volunteering experience impacts local charities so you see the direct impact of your time, skills and energy.
Team Challenges
We are unique to other employee volunteering services, using two decades of cross-sector experience from our founding charity, Connect Reading.
Team Challenges addressing a real need, with a real local impact
Team Challenges are a great opportunity to build your internal teams, getting them out of the office to find better ways of communicating and connecting. Charities often need extra support, but sometimes it’s hard to identify what will have the most positive impact.
Whilst outdoor activities and DIY projects are frequently popular, we also work to find strategically impactful team opportunities which can utilise the amazing skills of your staff in other ways. This ensures the needs of the charity are genuinely met, and your efforts are genuinely having a positive impact.
Impact Volunteering
Having worked on Reading’s Vision for Volunteering, we are committed to finding strategic ways to transform your Corporate Volunteering practice to maximise employee take-up and community impact.
Volunteering
From an hour a week, or 2 hours a month, to a few days a year … the way you allow your employees to engage in activities has a positive impact on them and the community or environment around them.
Finding Better Ways to Volunteer
We know from our research for the Reading Vision for Volunteering that employee uptake of ‘corporate volunteering’ can be low. Staff can find the search overwhelming, and internal platforms can often place a burden on the charities as they seek to continuously update available volunteering opportunities.
What if there was a better way? We work with you to establish better internal HR practices which allow staff to break down their volunteering hours across the year. Why not emulate the innovative SME, Phantom Brewing Co, by encouraging staff to volunteer online for an hour a week (from the office) in order to accumulate extra annual leave days? Get in touch with us to explore new ways to maximise your business’ social impact and staff engagement.
ESG Scoping Project
Helping you map existing activities, identifying how they relate to ESG. Capturing these for you then use in tenders and procurement. Scale-up advice, utilising our cross-sector network, is also available.
ESG Internal Scoping Project
Meeting with key individuals in your business, we help you get to grips with your ESG activities, scoping and mapping them out for use in tenders.
ESG (Environmental, Social & Governance) Internal Scoping Project
Utilising our knowledge of multiple social value frameworks* plus two decades of experience within Connect Reading, we help map out your business’ existing activities. Our bespoke framework enables you to collect all your ESG activities in one place, empowering your tenders and procurement processes.
We offer follow-up sessions to identify simple ways to scale-up the impact of existing activities, plus options to connect with new initiatives to maximise social impact.
*we work with the TOMs and SVROI frameworks, also using UN SDG indicators.
Private & Public Sector Support
We draw on the expertise of associates plus two decades of cross-sector experience from within Connect Reading. Our work with both sectors includes projects and advice, to more far-reaching and intricate stategy.
Private & Public Sector Support
Our associates bring their experience from a range of sectors, giving us a strong foundation to help build support for your organisation.
Working to Support Cross-Sector Solutions for the Public and Private Sectors
Our associates have worked in the public and private sectors, with a keen focus on improving social value and connectivity across sectors. In addition, we lean on our founding charity’s two decades of experience in cross-sector work.
Whether you are looking to improve the use of non-profits in your supply chain or build in better social value prospects into tenders, we can work with you to approach this strategically and ensure practical indicators are in place to bring about impactful results.
Training & Social Value Workshops
Are there aspects of social value that you need further embed in your planning and practice? Our training and Social Value Workshops may be just what you need; working bespoke to your business’ focus.
Training, Facilitation & Workshops
Our training sessions and workshops can help to embed social value into the planning, practice and service delivery of your organisation – whether you’re private or public sector.
Identifying and co-producing solutions for Partner Projects
Our short training sessions help key staff engage in the strategy and practice of social value. Workshops can galvanise ideas from your team to co-produce solutions in your projects, boosting social impact.
We work bespoke to your business focus, helping teams understand how social value can be embedded, moving it from a concept or phrase into culture and understanding.
Meet our
Associate Consultants.
Using their years of experience from across multiple sectors, they bring a balanced and wider-scoped view to our offering.
Lorraine
Briffitt
Cross-sector work and partnership development has given Lorraine her passion for impact and innovative strategy, working to boost social value and practice within clients’ businesses. She is also CEO of Connect Reading.
Kate
Graefe
Almost twenty years of public sector experience in procurement has allowed a strategic perspective, with expertise in social value and sustainability. Kate recently presented at the World Sustainable Procurement Day 2023.
Connect Collective
Our collective of experts hail from within the Connect Reading cross-sector network, with specialists in a range of areas; from private sector business, to charities, CICs and social enterprises plus many with public sector experience.
We have built the third sector into our supply chain by using Connect Reading as our admin support.
Let’s start the conversation
If you would like more information about the services of Connect Local, please leave your details and we’ll be in touch.