How to create Social Value Commitments with genuine impact

Why should you consider digital inclusion-based social value commitments?

• Digital inclusion underpins all forms of equity.

You cannot fully participate in modern society if you aren’t digitally included, yet 16.8m people have low or very low digital skills. More than half of all adults lack the full set of basic digital skills for work.

Whether you want to help people find work, combat loneliness, manage health conditions or just pay for parking – these things are almost impossible without basic digital skills. Today, all inclusion relies on digital inclusion and any social value commitments that tackle inequality need to consider it.

• The potential to align SVCs with broader goals and CSR/ ESG strategies.

You can create SVCs that resonate with your organisation and fit your wider goals. If you’re really smart, you can combine them in a symbiotic and complementary way with your over-arching ESG/ CSR plans, maximising their impact.

As a global tech consultancy, Capgemini knows it has a responsibility to help tackle the digital divide and have created activity that runs across all these areas – there’s more here on how to make them work together.

• Your staff are ready already…

The staff in blue chip organisations know about the importance of digital skills, even if it's subconsciously - they use them every day and work in digitally enabled environments. And though they might not realise it, they all know people who don’t have these skills.  

Once they’ve been exposed to the hard truths about digital exclusion, combatting it is something they can easily get behind. And they are usually tech-savvy themselves, so they can for example, do hands-on volunteering without extensive training. The one thing that is essential in unlocking this latent potential is digital inclusion awareness training: it’s often the ‘light bulb moment’ which creates momentum, action and impact.

The set-up for successful bids

• Unlock potential and get everyone on board….

Make sure all your staff digital-inclusion aware.

Thousands of Capgemini staff have done Inspire, our digital inclusion awareness course. In the first six months of 2025 alone, they pledged to deliver an immense 6,345 hours of digital skills support. This has a big impact of its own - but DI awareness comes with wider implications for the business....

Once everyone knows what DI is and why it matters to business and clients alike, they come up with new opportunities and profitable ways to weave in DI: those lightbulb moments generate a momentum of their own. 

• Think about where your expertise sits in the business.

Both in terms of how the knowledge is spread and how people can realise new opportunities.

Capgemini use a cascade learning model. Staff who do the Inspire course can then train others to do it, so it becomes something that the organisations owns and can grow at pace.

As the DI awareness grows, the SVC potential grows with it. In Capgemini, the Inspire programme co-ordinator works closely with the Social Value team, with fluidity between SVC strategic planning and practical delivery, and strong connections between the team and us as their delivery partners. 

• Fit SVCs to meet specific needs

Because digital exclusion impacts everyone, SVC projects can be tailored to support a wide range of people or very specific communities - and so deliver exactly what the bid requires.

LGD, Durham for example supports the general community in an area of high social deprivation (more than a third of children in County Durham live in poverty). LGD, Newcastle focusses more on helping older people with digital skills and LGD, West Cumbria leans towards helping people find skills for work. These aren’t the only beneficiaries, but they are key targets.

Making it work

• Stay involved.

Our programmes work best when we work in partnership, collaborating and combining our expertise. It maximises the impact any single SVC project can make – and it enables all parties to imagine new ways to creatively grow the programme.

For example, Capgemini colleagues deliver Inspire training workshops to organisations within the LGD areas and to public sector clients like local authorities. It’s a way staff can grow their involvement and it helps the business make strong connections across the area. 

• Tie it to a logic model and keep checking back.

All our LGD projects have logic models and reporting always ties back to them. It means you know when and how you’re making a difference, which you’ll always need to evidence. And a clear logic model helps you hone what you’re doing. The Capgemini logic models look at outputs, outcomes, aims and inputs and track them in the short, medium and long term.

• Think long term.

Creating meaningful change in communities takes time. Annual reviews are super helpful – time to get that logic model out – and funding decisions are inevitably time-limited. But try to keep one eye on the longer term future and plan with that in mind. Where could you go and grow next?

Thanks as ever to our partners at