Evidencing the Impact of VCSE Organisations on Community Health and Wellbeing in Kirklees

Voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations play a vital role in supporting community health and wellbeing. In Kirklees, these organisations operate alongside statutory health and social care agencies and play a key role in improving health, wellbeing and care outcomes. Yet while contributions are widely acknowledged anecdotally, many VCSEs are encouraged to produce robust, quantifiable evidence of their impact to secure sustainable funding, demonstrate value for money and achieve formal recognition within local systems and strategies.

Third Sector Leaders (TSL) Kirklees is the local infrastructure body for the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector. It supports and represents hundreds of groups, charities and social enterprises across the district, ranging from small neighbourhood associations to larger charities. TSL provides networking opportunities, training and capacitybuilding support, as well as advocacy to ensure the voices of grassroots organisations are heard within local decision-making. It also acts as a key partner to statutory agencies, helping to connect local health and care systems with the knowledge, capacity and innovation rooted in communities. Developed collaboratively between TSL and the University of Huddersfield, this project emerged in response to this need. It set out to better understand the impact of grassroots organisations working at the community level and to support them in articulating the social and economic value of their work in improving health and wellbeing.

By combining narrative case studies with exploratory economic analysis, the research sought to make visible the kinds of local, preventative and relationship-based activity that are less visible in statutory and health care systems. Within this context, the research aimed to evidence the economic and social impact of grassroots VCSE organisations in Kirklees in order to support advocacy and influence local health and wellbeing policy.