The sustainability landscape is evolving, and businesses are facing significant budget pressures linked to broader geopolitical shifts and ever-evolving reporting and disclosure requirements. As expectations grow, it is becoming increasingly important for companies to measure and demonstrate the real impact of their investments in society.

At Business for Societal Impact (B4SI), we have observed a growing recognition among our members of how impact measurement underpins the business case for social, strengthens relationships with stakeholders and allows for effective decision-making.

The recent Corporate Giving Report published by the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) presents a powerful picture to support this. Alongside analysis of trends in giving among UK businesses, including the FTSE 100, there is a strong focus on how frameworks drive positive change for companies that utilise them.

Insights from the 2025 CAF Corporate Giving Report reveal how structured frameworks like B4SI drive greater impact, accountability, and participation across corporate giving programmes.  Research showed that among the FTSE 100 companies surveyed, 93% have a giving strategy in place. However, those aligned with the B4SI Framework consistently demonstrate greater societal contributions and more engaged workforces.

• £21.9 million average donated per company, compared to £18.3 million for non-aligned companies
• £10 million median donation, significantly higher than the £3.3 million among others
• 1.6 million employee volunteering hours, triple that of non-aligned firms
• 88 minutes of average time volunteered per employee, compared to just 11 minutes

With a clear structure to guide programmes and identify the right indicators, the B4SI Framework provides companies with decision-useful data for more effective, sustainable and strategic approaches to social impact.   It also leads to greater confidence from businesses in the data they’re disclosing publicly, drawn from the alignment to a globally recognised methodology and the knowledge that they’re following an approach adopted by global peers.

 

“B4SI-aligned companies demonstrate how strategic intent, supported by a globally recognised framework, translates into deeper societal investment and greater business value.” – Clodagh Connolly, Global Director, B4SI

Kingfisher’s case study in the CAF report highlights how the B4SI framework helps structure its social impact strategy across a decentralised network of nearly 1,300 UK and Ireland stores. By providing a consistent approach to measuring community investment, benchmarking performance, and driving initiatives like Community Days, Kingfisher increased volunteer hours from 35,036 to 53,854 in one year.

We were delighted for the B4SI framework to once again form the basis of the methodology used in the research for this report. The report shines a powerful spotlight on the state of corporate community investment in the UK, and opens an important conversation about how companies can maximise both the value and impact of their social contributions, transforming intentions into measurable outcomes that benefit both society and business.

To support our members to go further in measuring and articulating their impacts on both society and the business, we have recently launched a new The toolkit helps companies define, measure and manage the impacts of their social investments on individuals, organisations, nature, employees and the wider business.