As a third sector organisation dedicated to developing enterprising and sustainable services, we think it’s important that organisations track their impact. Of course, all businesses have goals and KPIs that help track the outcome of their work, but for those working in the third sector, understanding your impact and measuring the real, positive changes you are making, is critical.
With this idea firmly in mind, we encourage all organisations we work with to do this, and also make sure to track it ourselves. Indeed, we practice what we preach.
Whilst each of the CEIS Group businesses have their own set of detailed KPIs, at the end of each financial year we like to drill down into them to what we call “the vital few”. These KPIs allow us to design our Impact Facts helping our colleagues to see at a glance the impact of their work from the previous financial year.
A view of the entire CEIS Group
Having three businesses under one banner means that there are always a lot of things to track and report on but by boiling it down into the nine most vital facts, we find everyone can easily see an overview of the entire Group’s performance.
No one thing that our businesses do is more important than the other, however one thing that CEIS, CEIS Ayrshire and DSL Business Finance all do is support businesses. Whether it’s through one-to-one enterprise support, business services for training and development, or helping organisations secure funding, you could say that the CEIS Group is a one stop shop for third sector businesses.
How we helped businesses to become sustainable, and grow, in 2021/2022
One of the most important measures of performance for the CEIS Group is the number of businesses we supported. In 2021/2022, this number was 1412. That’s a 12% increase from the previous period (2020/2021) and something that we’re very proud of. But how did we do it?
This combined figure came from all three CEIS Group businesses:
CEIS
Based in our Govan office, CEIS deliver their business support via their Enterprise and Communities team (ECT). Put simply, this team provide enterprise support to businesses in the third sector, covering everything from start-ups, established businesses, social enterprises, charities, housing associations, community organisations and much, much more.
ECT have a wide range of experience working across different business sectors, both public and private, and have extensive knowledge of real-world business issues. In 2021/2022, they helped over 130 businesses directly with one-to-one support.
CEIS Ayrshire
Although employability is an important part of CEIS Ayrshire’s businesses, they also offer business services to organisations in and around Ayrshire, Renfrewshire and Dumfries and Galloway.
This includes recruitment services, staff training and development, business development and support, modern apprenticeships and the delivery of accredited, industry standard qualifications. A large percentage of the impact delivered in 2021/2022 came from these services.
DSL Business Finance
DSL help businesses to obtain funding. They do this in a variety of ways, including distributing funds from Scottish Government programmes. They help organisations at every stage of their development, from start-up to established businesses, and since their inception have issued over £33m of loans.
In addition to helping support many of the 1412 businesses stated in our Impact Facts, they also loaned £5.1m worth of funds.
We couldn’t be prouder of the performance of our three businesses in 2021/2022, and we’re very excited to see how they do this current financial year.
To learn more about each business, and how they can help you, click on the links in the sections above, or simply get in touch with us today and we can help you.