Posted 16th February 2022
Social Value UK are proud to announce Georgia Bird, Social Value Associate at Dominvs Group has achieved Level One Associate Practitioner status.
“Dominvs Group is a privately owned, trusted group of companies focused on the hotel, residential and commercial real estate sectors in the United Kingdom.
Founded in 2011, we have grown into a market-leading real estate platform with assets under management of more than £1 billion. We are an end-to-end business, with capabilities spanning acquisition, design, planning, development and asset management.
Our differentiation stems from our ability to approach each project individually and identify the optimal strategy to maximise value.
We combine a highly knowledgeable team with trusted partnerships, and in doing so have built a reputation for quality throughout the industry.”
Ahead of this announcement, we had a discussion about our Practitioner Pathway and Georgia’s experience with the Level One assessment process:
Why have you decided to undertake the Social Value International Practitioner Pathway?
I decided to undertake the Social Value International Practitioner Pathway because I want to continuing embedding social value within Dominvs Group, both in the culture of the business and across all of our projects.
The Social Value International Practitioner Pathway has already begun developing my understanding how to do this with integrity, transparency and confidence and I am looking forward to taking the nest steps of the Social Value International Practitioner Pathway.
What did you learn and find useful from this assessment process?
I found the readings really insightful and easy to follow and highly recommend them for anyone wishing to learn more about social value and SROI. However, the online training course I undertook with Tim Goodspeed was the most insightful and valuable training course I have ever been on. For a topic so complex, the way it was explained and the pace at which it was explained made the information not only digestible but enjoyable.
Now that you are a Level 1 Associate Practitioner what do you plan to do next to develop your practice? How do you plan to use your practitioner skills?
Now that I am a Level 1 AP, I plan to embed the principles of social value across all our social value projects more thoroughly at Dominvs Group.
I plan to develop a Stakeholder Involvement Plan that the Social Value and Community Investment team can use prior to running our social value projects to identify the most important outcomes for Dominvs that are informed by the stakeholders of our projects. This will ensure the outcomes are material and that we are accountable for those outcomes.
Are there any specific projects or activities you are doing at the moment that are related to SROI/social value?
In July 2021, Dominvs acquired a social value and community benefits consultancy who have become a dedicated Social Value and Community Investment team, working collaboratively with local communities and our supply chain to ensure we create positive social, economic and environmental outcomes.
Since then, we have been pushing the social value boundaries in all the work we undertake, and we have embarked on an interesting and in our view pioneering research project with Real Worth, which will identify what features of PBSA create social value and how we can utilise our findings to create places and experiences for students. This project involves direct engagement with students and partnering with University’s across the country to ensure the stakeholders of our developments are informing design and delivery.
To date, we have not completed any SROIs as Dominvs, but have completed two impact sheets that were created using the Housing Association Charitable Trust (HACT) Social Value Bank and the National Themes Outcomes and Measures. (TOMS)
The first impact sheet was in relation to Gaia’s Garden, a community-led project on our site in Holborn in partnership with Play Nice (creative agency), Culture Mile and the City of London. The garden was built by 230 young volunteers from across London and built in 6 weeks. Gaia’s Garden hosted a 9-week programme of events teaching attendees about sustainability, programmed by a diverse cohort of young creatives from across London. We used the HACT Social Value Bank to provide a metric from the data Play Nice and Culture Mile collected through interviews with the young stakeholders involved in the project, including volunteers and those who were employed during the programming.
The second impact sheet measured the social value we created through our recent meanwhile use project in Nine Elms, the Nine Elms Community Corner. This project saw us build strong relationships with two key community partners and local artists to deliver a temporary art installation and a community hoarding project. We used a combination of the HACT Social Value Bank and National TOMs to provide a metric from the data we collected from the two community partners and the local artists when we asked them to provide feedback on their experience.
We also have implemented a Social Value Charter, the objectives of this are to define our principles, values and ethics as a company with regards to social value and community benefits. The charter underlines our commitment to social value and sets a clear memorandum of understanding between the business and its employees.
As part of this movement, an independent Social Value Supply Chain Charter has been created to outline our expectation of the contractors and organisations within the supply chain, setting a benchmark for our minimum expectations for social value.
The Social Value Supply Chain creates a clear framework and memorandum of understanding that our supply chain partners recognise and respect when working with Dominvs.
The overarching objective of the Supply Chain Charter is to build trust and transparency between Dominvs and its supply chain partners in order to drive improved standards and performance throughout the supply chain, giving all stakeholders involved assurance in products and services. Dominvs expect all supply chain partners to communicate and understand the Social Value Charter and Supply Chain Charter to any personnel working within or seconded to any of the projects or contracts held with Dominvs.
You have now joined a community of practice around the globe. What does this mean to you and why do you want to participate and contribute to the development of the methodology and overall social value movement?
I have known about Social Value International since beginning my social value journey in 2018 and have always been a strong advocate for the social value principles that reflect the organisation’s genuine drive to hold organisations accountable for impact on people to ensure decisions are made to improve wellbeing, equality and the environment.
I want to be a part of the social value movement so that I can learn from others and educate others on the importance of social value to support the movement and help make a genuine positive contribution to the world.
“I am delighted to have become a Level 1 Associate Practitioner with Social Value International. This has allowed me to gain a deeper understand of how to apply the principles of social value to my job and in doing so allowed me to play a part in the movement towards changing the way the world accounts for value.”
Georgia Bird, Social Value Associate at Dominvs Group
For more information get in touch with Georgia, via [email protected]
Posted 17th February 2022