This year has truly been the most transformative in whatimpact’s eight-year history. In February 2025, we launched open access to our National Social Value Marketplace—a milestone that reshaped our trajectory and set a new national standard for partnership-building in public sector procurement.

Since then, we have mapped more than 300,000 VCSEs across the UK, making their skills, services and community reach visible in a way that has never been possible before. We have expanded our marketplace with multiple matchmaking mechanisms, each aligned with the Government’s new Social Value Model and the updated TOM System, enabling suppliers and VCSEs to collaborate with clarity, transparency, and confidence.

Our Impact Reporting Tool has taken a major leap forward. It now captures outcome and evidence data per contract number, enabling suppliers to report not just donations and volunteering hours, but also reach, outcomes, and verified impact directly connected to procurement commitments. This is a major advancement in evidence-based social value reporting for government suppliers.

We also began experimenting with AI-driven analysis, merging tens and even hundreds of impact reports to provide contract-wide and portfolio-wide insights—helping both suppliers and funders understand the broader achievements and trends behind social value and grant programme results.

Our Volunteering Management Hub has been upgraded into the only volunteering system in the market specifically designed to create and track government-contract-related volunteering opportunities. It also allows employees to contribute their own volunteering ideas, enriching the marketplace with authentic and locally relevant offers of support.

Another major innovation this year is our model that enables local authorities, procurement agencies, and central government bodies to facilitate marketplace activity—offers, matches, and impact—in their contract environments. This gives contracting authorities complete visibility of partnership activity within their own supply chain, without paying for matches created by other authorities. It’s efficiency, transparency, and scale—working exactly as the national marketplace concept intended.

LOOKING AHEAD AT 2026

The coming year will be equally transformative, with major releases and national collaborations already underway.

Q1 2026

• We are launching Single Sign-On integration with Social Value Portal in January, creating a seamless user experience across the ecosystem.
• On 11th March, we host the VCSE Summit 2026, expected to be the largest national VCSE training event of its kind, with over 1,000 organisations participating.
  They will receive training on government procurement opportunities, social value requirements, bid readiness, and strategic capability building.
  Speakers include leaders from the Cabinet Office, NCVO, local councils, Social Value Portal, Samtaler, and a wide range of VCSEs, CVS networks, and sector specialists.

Q2 2026

• Our new Dashboard Technology will be released, offering unparalleled visibility into partnerships, outcomes, and geographical footprint across contracts.
• Several new grant programmes will be launched through the marketplace, expanding opportunities for local and national community initiatives.

Q3 2026

• We will introduce school-level data, with a focus on the most deprived areas, allowing suppliers and authorities to strategically target educational settings where social value support is most urgently needed.
• Additional integrations with complementary platforms will further strengthen ecosystem connectivity.

Q4 2026

• We will expand beyond VCSEs to include SMEs seeking trade partnerships, enabling even broader supply chain collaboration.
• More tools, more visibility, and more local impact—scaling the marketplace into a complete national partnership infrastructure.

SEE YOU NEXT YEAR

As we reflect on this remarkable year, we want to thank every partner, VCSE, supplier, and contracting authority that has been part of this journey.
Together, we are proving that equal opportunity, transparency, and efficiency are not just values—they are the foundation for maximising social impact on the ground.

The national marketplace model is now demonstrating its true power:
a single system capable of managing social value delivery, grant-making, and CSR partnerships on a nationwide scale, while offering hyper-local precision where it matters most.

Thank you for your continued trust and support.
Wishing you a restful holiday season—and an inspiring year ahead.

Here’s to shaping the future of social value—together.