As the festive season arrives, we’d love to wish you all a very happy Christmas and a restful break.
And as 2025 draws to a close, it’s the perfect moment to pause, look back on the year that’s been and share a few of our favourite highlights.
Together, with our fantastic clients, we’ve created an estimated £1.58 million in Social Value this year. This figure represents so much more than activity on our platforms. It demonstrates and increase in neighbours supporting one another, communities unlocking local strengths and health systems beginning to move towards prevention and shared responsibility.
Some metrics include:
- 12,580 people joined a platform.
- 28,136 activities added.
- 28,087 hours volunteered.
- 14,000 time banking hours exchanged.
- 82 teams and networks formed.
- 12,744 messages connecting people.
And while the numbers matter, they only tell part of the story. The real impact lives in the relationships made, the partnerships formed and the individuals who show up every day to make a difference.
Here are some of our highlights:
Building stronger communities through connection, prevention and collaboration
Living Well Warrington
Connecting people, communities and services.
Launched in March, Living Well Warrington supports health and wellbeing across the borough by helping people connect with local support and take simple steps to look after themselves - based on what matters to them.
The platform now attracts around 20,000 visitors each month and was highly commended in the prestigious HSJ Awards 2025 (Integrated Care Initiative category), recognising its role in supporting prevention and community-based care and helping shift support from hospitals into neighbourhoods, in line with the NHS Long Term Plan.
Earlier this year, Stephen Bennett, Head of Strategy and Partnerships at Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, shared why this work matters for or Place Makers Podcast.
Made Open’s software gives us pretty much everything we are looking for but, more importantly, the Made Open team are a perfect fit in terms of sharing our vision and values.
Stephen Bennett, Head of Strategy & Partnerships, NHS Warrington and Halton Teaching Hospitals
Can Do Bristol
Co-designing community-led recovery.
Earlier this year, Bristol City Council’s Community Resources team worked with Bristol’s Lived Experience Recovery Organisation (LERO) to explore how Can Do Bristol (Bristol's volunteering and social action platform) could better support people on their drug and alcohol recovery journeys.
Through co-design workshops led by Made Open, people with lived experience helped shape Can Do Recovery - a welcoming, stigma-free online space offering trusted resources, clear routes to services and peer support.
Working with you has been a really positive experience. You not only understand the tech side better than we ever could, but you also really get our values and what we're trying to do.
Ellie Stevens, Community Resources Manager, Bristol City Council
Living Well RCT
Strengthening neighbourhood wellbeing in Rhondda Cynon Taf.
This year marked a pivotal moment for Connect RCT, as partners across Rhondda Cynon Taf came together around a shared ambition to evolve the platform into Living Well RCT (working title).
The work responds to a clear challenge: while people in RCT live to an average age of 78, many spend around 14 years in poor health, alongside rising poverty, isolation and pressure on services.
In 2025, partners made progress by:
- Agreeing a neighbourhood-led, prevention-first approach.
- Recognising the role of community networks and early help.
- Identifying the need for a single shared digital system.
- Beginning to design a cross-sector partnership model.
This has helped shift the platform from being seen primarily as a directory to becoming part of a broader wellbeing system.
Elsewhere in Wales…
Our bi-lingual community platforms across Wales continue to grow. Connect Torfaen saw a significant boost in engagement this year, while Connecting Carmarthenshire won the Social Care Wales Award for Working in Partnership.
Throughout the year, platform leaders from Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, Anglesey, Torfaen and RCT came together at our chaired ‘Connect the Connects’ sessions - sharing challenges, learning from one another and exploring new opportunities in a demanding operating environment.
NHS Talent Timebanking
From regional pilot to national workforce offer.
2025 saw NHS Talent Timebanking move from a regional pilot to a credible, scalable workforce development offer across England. In a healthcare system under constant pressure, traditional talent management can reinforce hierarchy and limit opportunity - particularly for under-represented groups. Talent Timebanking offers a different approach, built on a simple idea: everyone’s time has equal value.
2025 highlights:
- National launch in April.
- Participation from all regions of England.
- 82% membership growth in the last six months.
- Adoption across mentoring, skills exchange and primary care.
- Highly commended at the HPMA Awards 2025.
- Featured at the CIPD Workforce Planning & Talent Management Conference.
Looking ahead, the focus is on deepening adoption, strengthening insight and sustaining quality and inclusion as the network continues to scale.
Working with Made Open has been a great experience. The team are supportive, engaged and genuinely collaborative. We’re proud of how Talent Timebanking has matured and excited about what’s possible next.
Halima Chowe, Senior Programme Lead, NHS England
Devon Connect
5,000 members and growing.
Earlier this year, Devon Connect celebrated a major milestone, surpassing 5,000 members and becoming one of the largest community-led digital platforms in the South West.
Devon Connect is the 'one-stop-shop' for information and support, and shows what’s possible when organisations work in partnership and share their resources.
Last month we spoke with Marie Gould, Chief Officer of North Devon Voluntary Services and Chair of Devon Connect, on the Place Makers Podcast, exploring human connection as a catalyst for change.
Devon Connect is the one-stop shop but with a human touch. It’s been a fantastic journey and we’ve been supported brilliantly by Made Open.
Marie Gould, Chief Officer of NDVS and Chair of the Devon Connect
Future Towns Innovation Hub
Creating a better world for all who live in it.
Led by the University of Southampton, the Future Towns Innovation Hub is a shared digital and in-person space bringing people together to create happier, healthier and more prosperous places.
We were delighted to be selected as the foundation platform for the Hub, recognising our software’s ability to support peer-to-peer dialogue, connect diverse stakeholders and enable structured innovation.
Alongside the platform, we also helped shape Love Your Place - a community-led innovation programme using design thinking to turn local challenges into actionable projects.
It is a genuine breath of fresh air to work with Made Open. Engaging with a team and a platform built on a shared, purposeful vision, and a clear determination to make things happen, is inspiring. Made Open demonstrate what’s possible when collaboration and practical problem-solving genuinely sit at the heart of a service.
Professor Clint Styles, Associate Dean (Enterprise), University of Southampton
What's new on our platform?
Throughout 2025, we continued to improve the usability, functionality and security of our community software. We’re especially grateful to our clients, platform administrators and partners whose feedback continues to shape these improvements.
User experience improvements
- Improved ‘semantic’ site search.
- Interactive activity maps.
- Job vacancies feature.
- Private activity sharing within teams and networks.
- Enhanced events calendar.
- Volunteer time logging.
- Enhanced activity and member badges.
- Social impact reporting
Enhanced security and trust
- Cyber Essentials Certification.
- Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA).
- Stronger, NCSC-aligned password standards.
- Configurable failed login protection.
Reasons to celebrate
- Finalist, Tech South West Awards 2025 - Tech for Good category.
- Launched the Place Makers Podcast.
- Published our free Guide to Building Better Community Partnerships.
- Delivered our first Design Thinking for Place Innovation Workshop in Cornwall.
Looking ahead to 2026
From neighbourhood wellbeing and recovery to workforce collaboration and place-based innovation, 2025 reinforced a simple truth: Technology enables connection - but people and partnerships make change happen.
Thank you to everyone who has collaborated, co-designed and supported this work. We’re excited to continue building healthier, more connected communities together in 2026.
Best wishes,
The Made Open Team
