Case Study: Social Finance achieves a product‑mindset and a more robust, user‑centered Leaving Well app with VMware Tanzu (Pivotal Act)

How Social Finance Adopted a Product-Mindset

Social Finance is a UK non-profit focused on improving outcomes for young people leaving care, who often face a sudden loss of support and higher risks of unemployment, homelessness and mental-health issues. While developing the Leaving Well app to connect young people with support workers and streamline statutory reporting, the organisation struggled with limited in-house software experience, an inconsistent user experience and a “patched-together” development process.

To address this, Social Finance partnered with Pivotal Act to embed a product mindset and agile practices—balanced teams, user-centered research, test-driven development and co-design with young people. Over a five-month engagement they rebuilt testing and research into development, released new features, and made the app more robust; Leaving Well is now used by multiple local authorities, saves social workers time on admin, and has left the team more confident and the organisation adopting agile practices more widely.

Social Finance

Kaj Siebert

CIO