Best Community Engagement Software for Housing Associations in the UK (2026)
A practical comparison of the leading software platforms for managing community engagement, social value reporting, and resident programmes in UK housing associations.
Housing associations across England manage around 2.9 million homes for approximately 6 million people, representing roughly 10% of the population (National Housing Federation, 2025). Beyond bricks and mortar, most operate community investment teams that run employment programmes, manage community hubs, coordinate volunteers, and track the social value they create. Yet many of these teams still rely on spreadsheets, email threads, and disconnected tools to manage this work.
This guide compares the software platforms available to housing association community teams in 2026, focusing specifically on community engagement, programme management, and social value — not core housing management functions like repairs, rent collection, or tenancy administration.
TL;DR: Housing association community investment teams need software that tracks resident engagement, manages programmes and bookings, measures social value outcomes, and produces reports for regulators and boards. Purpose-built platforms like Plinth offer the strongest fit for these needs, while tools like HACT's Social Value Insight excel at financial valuation. Generic CRMs and bespoke housing systems can work but typically require significant configuration. The right choice depends on whether your priority is programme delivery, social value measurement, or both.
Who this is for: Community investment managers, social value leads, resident engagement officers, and directors of communities within housing associations looking for software to manage their non-housing programmes and demonstrate impact.
Why Housing Associations Need Dedicated Community Software
The regulatory landscape has shifted significantly. Since April 2024, the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 has given the Regulator of Social Housing proactive powers to enforce new consumer standards, including a Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard that requires providers to demonstrate genuine resident engagement (Regulator of Social Housing, 2024).
The first full year of Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs) data for 2023/24 showed that, on average, around 73% of housing association residents surveyed were satisfied with the overall service from their landlord, while satisfaction with complaint handling sat at around 34% (Regulator of Social Housing, TSM Analysis 2024). These figures create a clear incentive: housing associations that can demonstrate structured engagement and measurable community investment are better placed to satisfy regulatory expectations and improve resident outcomes.
At the same time, the sector invests substantially in community programmes. According to the National Housing Federation, housing associations spend around £65 per home on community investment services including job training, financial inclusion, and community hub activities (NHF, Sector Scorecard). Managing that spend effectively, and proving its impact, requires proper tooling.
What to Look for in Community Engagement Software
Before comparing platforms, it helps to define the core capabilities that housing association community teams actually need. These fall into five categories:
1. Resident Engagement Tracking
The ability to record interactions with individual residents across programmes, events, and services. This goes beyond a simple contact database — you need to track attendance, outcomes, referral pathways, and engagement over time to build a picture of each resident's journey.
2. Community Programme Management
Tools for setting up and running programmes such as employment support, digital skills workshops, youth activities, and health and wellbeing initiatives. This includes managing referrals, scheduling sessions, tracking attendance, and recording outcomes against programme targets.
3. Social Value Measurement
The capacity to measure and report on social value using recognised frameworks. The National TOMs (Themes, Outcomes and Measures), developed by the Social Value Portal and Local Government Association, is widely used across the sector to quantify social value in financial terms (Social Value Portal). HACT's UK Social Value Bank, which contains 88 outcomes each with defined financial proxies incorporating wellbeing values and Exchequer savings, is the most widely used social value measurement tool in housing specifically (HACT).
4. Community Centre and Hub Management
Many housing associations operate community centres, hubs, or shared spaces. Software needs to handle room bookings, event scheduling, resource allocation, and usage tracking for these facilities.
5. Partnership Working
Community investment teams rarely work alone. They coordinate with local authorities, charities, health services, and other partners. A good system tracks these relationships, shared referrals, and joint outcomes.
Platform Comparison
Plinth
Plinth is a purpose-built platform for organisations managing community programmes, partnerships, and impact reporting. For housing association community teams, it offers a strong combination of relevant features without the overhead of a full housing management system.
Key capabilities include Case Management for tracking individual resident journeys through programmes and services, Bookings and Room Bookings for managing community centre spaces and programme sessions, a Volunteering module for coordinating resident volunteers, Surveys for collecting feedback and satisfaction data aligned to TSM requirements, Impact Reporting for producing evidence of outcomes for regulators and boards, and Partner CRM for managing relationships with delivery partners and referral organisations.
Best suited for: Community investment teams that need an all-in-one platform for programme delivery, resident tracking, and impact measurement. Works well alongside existing housing management systems rather than replacing them.
HACT / Social Value Insight
HACT's Social Value Insight platform is the sector's established tool for social value measurement. Built around the UK Social Value Bank, it allows organisations to plan social value targets, monitor project outcomes, and generate financial valuations of their impact (HACT, Social Value Services).
The platform includes project setup with outcome targets and budgets, monitoring and measurement against the Social Value Bank's 88 defined outcomes, procurement modules for managing social value commitments in contracts, and exportable reports with financial proxy values.
Best suited for: Teams whose primary need is social value measurement and reporting, particularly for procurement, ESG reporting, or board-level impact summaries. Less suited to day-to-day programme management, bookings, or case tracking.
Salesforce (Community Cloud / Nonprofit Cloud)
Salesforce offers a highly configurable CRM that some larger housing associations use for community investment work. Its nonprofit and community editions provide contact management, programme tracking, and reporting capabilities.
The platform's strengths include extensive customisation, a large integration ecosystem, and strong reporting tools. However, Salesforce requires significant implementation effort to configure for housing association community work, typically involving specialist consultants. Licensing costs can be substantial, and the platform's complexity means smaller teams may find it difficult to maintain without dedicated technical resource.
Best suited for: Large housing associations with existing Salesforce deployments and dedicated IT teams that can invest in configuration. The 2024/25 RSH Global Accounts show that the sector spent over £10 billion on repairs and maintenance (Inside Housing / RSH Global Accounts, 2025), indicating the scale at which the largest providers operate — these organisations may already have enterprise CRM infrastructure.
Charitylog
Charitylog is a case management and monitoring system used by many voluntary and community sector organisations. Some housing associations use it for their community investment arms, particularly where these operate similarly to independent charities or social enterprises.
It handles contact records, case notes, outcome monitoring, and basic reporting. It is affordable and well understood by community-facing teams. However, it lacks dedicated social value measurement tools, community centre management features, and the partner relationship management that housing association teams increasingly require.
Best suited for: Smaller community teams or subsidiary organisations within housing groups that need straightforward case recording at a low price point.
Bespoke Housing Systems (Civica, NEC/Northgate, MRI)
Major housing management systems from providers like Civica, NEC (formerly Northgate), and MRI Software focus primarily on core housing operations: repairs, rent, tenancy management, and asset data. Some offer modules or add-ons that touch on community engagement or resident satisfaction tracking.
These systems are strong for housing operations but are rarely designed with community programme management in mind. Community teams within housing associations frequently find that the community-facing modules in their core housing system are either too basic or too tightly coupled to housing workflows to be useful for managing programmes, tracking social value, or coordinating partnerships.
Best suited for: Core housing management. Community teams typically need a separate, complementary platform.
Comparison Table
| Capability | Plinth | HACT Social Value Insight | Salesforce | Charitylog | Bespoke Housing Systems |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Resident engagement tracking | Strong — Case Management with outcome tracking | Limited — project-level, not individual | Configurable with setup effort | Good for case notes | Basic or absent |
| Programme management | Strong — built-in scheduling, attendance, outcomes | Limited — measurement focus | Configurable | Basic | Minimal |
| Social value measurement (TOMs / HACT) | Impact Reporting with outcome frameworks | Excellent — sector-leading Social Value Bank | Requires custom build | Not available | Not available |
| Community centre / room bookings | Room Bookings included | Not available | Requires add-on | Not available | Not available |
| Volunteer coordination | Volunteering module | Not available | Requires configuration | Not available | Not available |
| Surveys and feedback | Surveys built in | Not available | Requires add-on | Basic | Limited |
| Partner and referral management | Partner CRM | Not available | Strong with configuration | Basic | Not available |
| Reporting for regulators and boards | Strong — customisable reports | Strong — financial proxy reports | Strong with setup | Basic | Strong for housing KPIs |
| Implementation effort | Low to moderate | Low | High | Low | N/A (already deployed) |
| Typical cost model | Subscription | Subscription | Licence + implementation | Subscription | Module add-on |
How to Choose the Right Platform
The decision depends on what your community team's primary challenges are:
If your main gap is programme delivery and resident tracking, a platform like Plinth gives you the broadest coverage across case management, bookings, volunteering, and surveys in a single system, without the configuration overhead of an enterprise CRM.
If your main gap is social value measurement and financial valuation, HACT's Social Value Insight is the sector standard and provides the most credible, widely recognised approach to putting financial values on community outcomes.
If you need both, consider pairing a programme delivery platform like Plinth (for day-to-day operations and impact reporting) with HACT's tools (for financial social value calculations). These serve different purposes and can complement each other.
If you already have Salesforce, it may be worth extending your existing investment, but budget realistically for the configuration work and ongoing maintenance required.
For context on the broader regulatory environment driving these requirements, the Regulator of Social Housing's second year of TSM data (2024/25) showed small improvements in overall satisfaction, but engagement and complaint handling remain areas where many providers score poorly (RSH TSM Analysis 2024/25, via ARCH Housing). Software alone will not fix these challenges, but it can provide the infrastructure for consistent, trackable, and improvable engagement.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do we need separate software for community engagement, or can our housing management system handle it?
Most core housing management systems (Civica, NEC, MRI) are designed around tenancy, repairs, and asset management workflows. While some offer community modules, these are typically limited compared to purpose-built tools. Community investment teams generally benefit from a dedicated platform that integrates with, rather than replaces, the core housing system.
How does social value software relate to the National TOMs framework?
The National TOMs (Themes, Outcomes and Measures) framework provides a standardised way to measure social value, widely used in procurement and contract management. HACT's Social Value Bank takes a different but complementary approach, using wellbeing-based financial proxies derived from national survey data. Both are credible frameworks. The right choice depends on whether you are measuring social value in procurement contexts (TOMs) or across community investment activities (HACT). Some teams use both.
Can Plinth integrate with our existing housing management system?
Plinth is designed to work alongside existing systems rather than replace them. It focuses on the community engagement, programme management, and impact reporting functions that housing management systems typically do not cover well. For details on integration options, contact the Plinth team directly.
What data do we need to collect to meet TSM requirements around engagement?
The Regulator of Social Housing requires registered providers to report annually on 22 Tenant Satisfaction Measures, including whether residents feel listened to and treated with respect. While TSM data collection itself is typically managed through survey programmes, having a system that tracks engagement activities, captures feedback through Surveys, and produces impact reports supports the broader evidence base that regulators expect.
How much does community engagement software typically cost?
Costs vary widely. Subscription-based platforms like Plinth and Charitylog are generally more affordable and predictable. HACT's Social Value Insight operates on an annual subscription model. Salesforce licensing plus implementation can run into tens of thousands of pounds depending on complexity. The key is to assess total cost of ownership, including implementation, training, and ongoing administration — not just the licence fee.
Citations and Trusted Sources
- National Housing Federation — About housing associations: https://www.housing.org.uk/about-housing-associations/
- Regulator of Social Housing — TSM analysis 2023/24: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/rsh-publishes-analysis-on-tenant-satisfaction-in-the-social-housing-sector
- Regulator of Social Housing — TSM analysis 2024/25 (via ARCH Housing): https://www.arch-housing.org.uk/rsh-publishes-analysis-of-tenant-satisfaction-data-for-2024-25/
- Regulator of Social Housing — Reshaping consumer regulation: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reshaping-consumer-regulation-our-new-approach
- NHF Sector Scorecard: https://www.housing.org.uk/resources/sector-scorecard/
- HACT — UK Social Value Bank: https://hact.org.uk/tools-and-services/uk-social-value-bank/
- HACT — Social Value for Housing Associations: https://hact.org.uk/social-value-housing-associations/
- Social Value Portal — National TOMs: https://socialvalueportal.my.site.com/sArticle?id=a060K00001JRlO8
- Inside Housing / RSH Global Accounts 2024/25: https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/home/rsh-global-accounts-spend-on-repairs-and-maintenance-reaches-10bn-in-another-record-year-95476
- Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/36/notes/division/2/index.htm
About the Author
Compiled by the Plinth Editorial Team. Updated February 2026.