Social Value Policy 2021–2022 report

We are proud to announce this year’s Social Value report, which documents a range of effective approaches to contextually applying software. We exceeded the desirable score set by the policy with a healthy margin that encourages us to build even more daring projects.

Discovering value

This is the second year we evaluate the social value created with our partners and other stakeholders. Since the first approved draft of the policy and accompanying Key Performance Indicators in 2019, we have continued finding space for improvement. At the first annual review last year we found overlapping areas of metrics that could be merged. More recently, we distilled 10 key metrics, first 7 of which remained unchanged — these are the core pursuits of Animorph, foundational to the policy.

1. Foster empathetic self-aware society.
2. Empower users to constructively participate in public life.
3. Address the challenges people face, be it social, medical or both.
4. Build value-driven long-lasting relationships with clients.
5. Nurture development of fringe ideas aiming to benefit society.
6. Care for well-being and personal development of the co-operative’s workers.
7. Engage with burning issues (also known as wicked problems) such as income inequality, racial/ethnic discrimination or climate change.
8. Internal research.
9. Portfolio.
10. Money.

Considerations are scored out of 10. The 7 Social Value Policy scores and 3 Additional Consideration scores are totalled to give a score out of 100.

Results

In a case our social value threshold is not met for 2 consecutive years the co-op “will wind up and the assets handed over to another organisation with the same or similar purposes. The recipient company is selected by majority vote and cannot have any current members as shareholders.”

We present the summary of scores for each project we completed during that year:

Express

Mobile Virtual Reality app for practising public speaking.

• 53 / 70
• 18 / 30

Be There

High-fidelity Virtual Reality simulation of Abby Road Studio with volumetrically streamed performance.

• 23 / 70
• 20 / 30

Shared Futures

Mobile Augmented Reality app for envisioning and commenting on future versions of urban areas.

• 58 / 70
• 26 / 30

Greenham Women digital

3D website environment with a treasure hunt exploring Greenham Common Peace Camp.

• 54 / 70
• 21 / 30

Gamified Intelligent Cyber Aptitude and Skills Training (GICAST)

Translating MOOC’s learning objectives into narrative-driven assessment as 3D games.

• 53.5/ 70
• 22.5 / 30

Total score: 349 / 500

The result achieved 69.8% exceeds the acceptable value threshold of 50%.

Review

At our AGM, in line with article 13 of the policy , we reviewed the mission statement, which still rings very true to us. The preamble states:

At Animorph we draw a line between being pragmatic and being cynical. These two tend to overlap elsewhere.

We believe both means and ends should go together. Our purpose is to enrich human potential of our workers, clients and audiences.

The only change we made to the metrics this year was capturing already active ‘Internal Research’ as a more defined area than ‘Social Outcomes’, which we also deemed as encompassed in the foundational 7 pursuits.

We have not amended our aims and objectives. It was reassuring to observe we are striving to gradually develop a more subtle process and the underlying needs are shared across the workers.

Leaning into the future

While nurturing the policy is important, we found that its implementation also deserves improvements. We started establishing a baseline at the inception of each project, between us internally as well as with the clients and partners. We expect this to ensure we have a broader perspective on the achievements in the context of the original goals and expectations. It is not merely to judge the validity of outcomes but also to better understand the process of creating social value. We favour a dynamic and earnest inquiry into stakeholders’ needs through design and development cycles to deliver relevant, delightfully usable and useful software.

As we have opened another set of projects in the sixth year of Animorph, we commit to continue featuring social value in our quarterly financial reports to collectively keep our eyes on the co-op’s trajectory. With our current engagements we are confident Animorph is pursuing its best self in line with our aspirations. We continue striving to bring people closer to each other and themselves through immersive and more traditional digital mediums. As a research-driven tech co-operative we feel obliged to explore the frontiers of experiential interfaces. We prioritise work pursuing what was previously impossible, addressing needs so far unmet. What is yours?