Stepp-Framework | InvestorsInCommunity

Transforming Communities. Improving Lives.

STEPP PROGRAMME

Delivering an effective ecosystem supporting communities to solve social challenges with
actionable engagement opportunities that drives more sustainable
outcomes and measurable economic impact.

Reduce Waste. Improve Communities.

Integrated Ecosystem

The STEPP (Social Transformation Ecosystem Partnership Programme) is a bold initiative that has been designed to deliver a much needed sense of cohesion and a more practical engagement model to all community stakeholders to begin the journey of addressing the fundamental flaws in the current approach and redefines how we tackle social challenges.

By embracing a holistic ecosystem approach, STEPP unites diverse stakeholders, promotes collaboration, and empowers communities to co-create solutions that address root causes and drive systemic change.

This comprehensive framework embeds social value into the behaviours, culture, and systems of communities, fostering sustainability and resilience. Through stakeholder engagement forums, tailored campaigns, standardized programs, and solution hubs, STEPP leverages innovation, efficiency, and data-driven insights to break down barriers and drive lasting impact.

STEPP is more than a framework, it is a movement that aims to break down barriers, reduce fragmentation and wastage, which places social value at the core of our actions and decisions, to create a more sustainable, fair, equal and inclusive future.

Cohesion

Break down barriers to entry for all stakeholder
Provide equal opportunities to engage
Human Centric Approach
All stakeholders working in unity to improve outcomes - shared resources and financials to reduce wastage and overhead
Reduce fragmentation and silo approach

Empower

Improve Skills
Imbed effective standardised measurement
Unite diverse voices
Inspire stakeholders to drive new innovations and adopt new approaches
Reward and incentivise engagement
Drive empowerment through collaboration

Economy

Imbed circular economy approaches to community engagement
Reduce wastage - both financial and resources
Create a new economy built of social value worth
Solve social challenges at the root cause - reduce the cost base approaches

STEPP Approach

In today's world, it's more important than ever to demonstrate our commitment to improving society and the environment for current and future generations. From complex social challenges to environmental concerns, the need for innovative solutions is urgent. STEPP offers a comprehensive framework to address these issues head-on, driving impactful change at both the local and national levels.

The existing landscape is siloed and fragmented, driven by multiple agendas and historical systems. The lack of cohesion creates much wastage in terms of resources and finances, resulting in immense negative economic impact and inequality.

The approach adopted today when solving social challenges is often to address the symptoms, rather than to provide relevant innovative solutions to tackle the root cause which would lead to a more sustainable future.

The STEPP framework unlike other programmes, has been designed to build upon a grass roots up approach, and building an in-country National centre of excellence.

In every region there are slight nuances in the demographic this both presents a set of different social challenges and indeed a different approaches and solutions are needed to begin to resolve the issues.

By deploying the framework at a grass roots up level this will enable the local stakeholder community to co-identify and resolve challenges that impact their everyday lives and develop a more strategic tactical set of initiatives to engage upon where results can be realised more quickly. This will bring a better sense of cohesion, ownership, and relevance.

The STEPP framework will be deployed across 12 regions across the UK supported by a dedicated team of social value experts within each region.

All the engagements, best practices and insights learned at a regional level, can be shared and a National centre of excellence for the country is formed to help drive consistency, governance, regulations, and policies.

This brings balance and a sense of cohesion across the country. This can begin to influence regulations, policy, national system changes and innovation needed.

The Framework

The STEPP framework has been meticulously crafted to provide actionable tactical engagement opportunities which bridge the gaps of the local needs v’s in-country and global agendas. Many social challenges are inter-connected and yet our current approaches is very siloed, the framework facilities a more connected and integrated system, which provides a comprehensive delivery engine to address social challenges and drive more impactful engagement and outcomes and a begin the journey towards a more sustainable future.

Transformation Eco-system Steering Committee

Regional community stakeholders of Local Authorities, Council and Service Providers, Charities, Businesses, and Individuals will form a local steering committee, which is a neutral forum, free from stakeholder constraints, barriers and politics.

This allows the committee to be open to a more holistic approach to:

Understand local landscape and needs of the community
Devise localised strategic plan based local demographic
Deploy localised initiatives and campaigns to achieve desired outcomes
Utilise localised resource and funding to maximise impact and reduce wastage
Access to in-country centre of excellence – best practices, resources, funding, regulation support and innovation

Engagement Initiatives

Local regional needs will be identified and published through the IIC platform for the stakeholder community to engage in, across the 5 ways of giving: Fundraising, Donations, Skilled Pro-bono, Volunteering, and Gifts in Kind.

Providing one place not just to find and engage in local activities but also to be effectively recognised and rewarded.

Campaigns

Localised campaigns will be tailored to the local regional core strategic priorities and needs to drive the desired outcomes.

Programmes

Building standardised, repeatable programmes to tackle social challenges effectively. These programmes provide a consistent approach that can be adapted to various communities, ensuring scalability and impact - Such as skills, employment, support, collaboration initiatives and much more with a view to improve the overall engagement & effectiveness. Weather that be working collaboratively to merging or embellishing existing programmes to drive better effectiveness or creating new programmes to achieve better social outcomes.

Solution Hubs

Bespoke Design Thinking Workshops on focused social challenges to rethink and redesign approaches and solutions. Resulting in innovative changes either in new social enterprises, using technology as an enabler or regulatory and policy reforms for a more sustainable outcome.

Organisational Excellence

Showcasing best practices through a range of mediums such as: case studies, podcast and executive forums, consultancy packages to support businesses excel, and gain best traction and ROI.

Collaboration & Cohorts

Reducing fragmentation by encouraging collaboration among stakeholders. Cohort models facilitate the sharing of resources, ideas, and best practices, ensuring a unified approach to solving social challenges.

In line with the local community needs collaboration and cohorts will be formed to drive better alignment and identify gaps in our current approaches that we can begin to resolve more effectively through better alignment.

Public & Third Sector Support

Supporting Charities and Third Sector to better align and utilise community resources to meet the needs of the community and supporting them to achieve greater resilience by positioning themselves to meet supporters needs, reporting requirements, and become more sustainable and innovative through collaboration.

Research & Development

Using STEPP insights and trend analysis to inform research and innovation to drive social value.

This continuous learning process ensures that solutions remain relevant and effective.

Data Driven

Utilising data to inform new innovations, regulations, and policies. With a data driven approach we can be sure that we continually adapt to the changing needs and developments of communities.

Governance and Policy

Throughout the STEPP framework ensuring good governance are in place when it comes to driving social value and using the finding and outcomes to inform regulatory and policy changes needed to support all stakeholders.

Circular Economy

We are all too familiar with this term when it comes to environmental impact initiatives - we aim to revolutionise the landscape and imbed these practices when it comes to solving social challenges to ensure that our approaches begin the journey to transform to a more sustainable future. With unique concepts and approaches to support communities to evolve with social value worth as a back bone imbedding in our everyday lives, behaviour, culture and systems.

What people say

Fascinating day on Tuesday with Louise Richardson and Philip Webb from Investors in Community hearing about their STEPP programme. Set up to provide an easy platform for corporate giving, the potential is huge.

As a group, senior people from a range of large companies brainstormed how to come together to help with some of societies biggest issues. Mark Burley from Keepmoat talked about the work they are doing in prisons, I shared our new programme for care leavers, funded by CCLA Investment Management, and a range of support and advice was offered. Thank you everyone!

We were hosted by IBM at their Innovation Centre and got to meet Spot the dog. A little scary but fascinating.

Rosemary Macdonald BEM

CEO, UK Community Foundations

Had a thought-provoking day at IBM diving into the exciting world of how technology can drive social innovation alongside Investors In Community.

During our discussions, I got excited about the potential of social credits (scoring) and the transformative impact it could bring to society. Here’s a real-world example from one of the attendees: Hull Prison, where a group of mates crafts beautiful planters from recycled wood. In a unique twist, those who receive these planters are asked to dedicate an equal amount of their time by volunteering.

Now, envision a future where technology empowers you to conveniently handpick activities that align with your schedule, location, aspirations, skills, and support for various causes. Better yet, picture a world where you can precisely measure your contributions to society and get public recognition, build relationships, enhance your CV and get perks in return.

With widespread adoption and standardisation, this innovation has the potential to facilitate the integration of refugees, equip care leavers with essential skills for employment, enable corporate workers to invest their volunteer hours meaningfully, and even foster a voluntary market for social enterprise products.

If you're as passionate about this movement and join the IIC digital platform, reach out to Louise Richardson and Philip Webb (IIC)

Alex Annaev

ESG & sustainability strategy, programmes and reporting

I was invited to a STEPP (Social Transformation Ecosystem Partnership Programme) framework prelaunch roundtable hosted by IBM and Investing In Communities.

Along with other attendees who work across industries with expertise in sustainability, inclusion, the future of work and so on, we discussed the topic of building a sustainable eco-system in tackling social challenges

By leveraging innovative approaches through effective hashtag#collaboration among stakeholders (businesses, government, individuals and charities), we get to solve societal problems for both economic and social impact.

This is what the STEPP framework is proposing, an approach that will lead to sustaining the important work charities are doing.

From a workplace viewpoint, we collectively agreed a firm’s employer brand should include its social purpose and values.

A firm’s social purpose is as important as its profitability, and as research has shown, an important lever for the attraction and retention of future talent especially among Gen Z and Millennials.

Thanks Louise Richardson and Philip Webb (IIC) for the invite and looking forward to the launch of the IIC STEPP Framework!

Bola Adesina, MBA