Purpose and progress
Company impact report 2024
“Last year was one of the busiest and most progressive for our company as a purpose-driven enterprise. Early in 2024 we set out to become a B Corporation. We’ve found it challenging and unexpectedly enlightening, pushing us to consider every dimension of our business, while also recognising and validating much of our work during the past decade. This is our first impact report and much of it describes small changes rather than big outcomes. But, as B Corps has shown us, it’s not scale that matters, but behaviour and direction.”
2024 highlights
Generating more than 80% of our revenue from purpose-driven projects*.
Completing the B Corps Impact Assessment with a view to certification.
Formally changing our constitution to prioritise people and planet with profit.
Creating and publishing a new company mission statement.
Launching a new stakeholder engagement plan with a programme of action.
Creating 15 new policies to improve quality, efficiency and customer service.
Carrying out feedback surveys with our customers and contractors.
Implementing new energy-efficiency policies and practices.
Becoming a CPD Group-approved provider and renewing our FSQS accreditation.
Volunteering nearly 10 days for projects in the Rutland community.
Governance: working on the foundations
The B Corps assessment process put our company governance, structure and operations under the microscope, prompting steps to improve and consolidate our impact business model.
We completed an exercise to identify and target key stakeholders, and implemented a new stakeholder engagement plan, with actions that included running a feedback survey for contractors, and customers from the previous 12 months. We will be publishing survey responses in 2025.
We formalised our approach to several governance and operational areas by creating or revising the following 15 new company policy documents:
Environmental policy; Customer service policy; GDPR compliance checklist; Privacy policy; Quality assurance and quality control procedure; Responsible marketing procedure; Safeguarding learners policy; Malpractice policy; Course content review policy; Complaints policy; Appeals policy; Reasonable adjustments policy; Equal opportunity charter; Training cancellation policy; Information security governance framework
We amended our Articles of Association, which now legally require us to consider all stakeholders and make business choices that have a material positive impact on society and the environment, taken as a whole. Our mission statement supports this promise.
We identified the underrepresentation of women in business in the UK as an issue we were in a position to help address. By making a small adjustment to our company share allocation we were able to end the financial year as a company majority-owned by a woman, with more than 70% of our senior consultants being women.
Environment: a new mindset and some practical steps
Our B Corps impact assessment got us to take an objective look at our environmental footprint and the scope to minimise negative environmental impacts. Being a small-scale, service-based business and working locally or remotely gives us a lighter footprint in some respects. Nonetheless, we were able to identify and begin adopting a number of new, sustainable practices, including:
Energy conservation: more limited and selective use of office appliances, and installing thermal blinds (currently on order!).
Waste reduction: sorting and recycling all paper, card, metal, glass and plastic.
Travel: walking or cycling to work, opting for remote meetings, and using trains or electric car for longer journeys.
Measurement: working with our landlord to get energy use data, and exploring ways to measure our carbon footprint.
The Commute: our offices, in the centre of Uppingham, are a 25-minute walk from home on a path called The Inhams. 2024 was the 12th year of walking this route to work, taking on all seasons and conditions.
Recycling: the small amount of waste we generate is sorted into paper, plastic, glass and metal, carried home and recycled using our domestic municipal service.
Community: getting involved locally
In October 2024 we completed a review of our mission and impact business model. Our new mission statement makes a specific commitment to extend our learning and creative experiences to the local community of Rutland. During the year Clare and Thomas volunteered nearly 10 days for local projects that included:
Serving on the Local Governing Board of Catmose College, a large comprehensive school in Oakham, which in April received an Ofsted judgement of Outstanding in all categories.
Giving careers talks and workshops for young people at Catmose College on two Career Days.
Leading the InhamSingers, an inclusive Natural Voice community singing group with 40 people of diverse ages and backgrounds on the register.
Organising Final Friday — a monthly social event in Bisbrooke to bring the local community together in an informal setting.
Managing and running Uppingham Town U12 cricket team.
Customers: new conversations and standards
The B Corps Impact Business Model assessment required us to evaluate our client work from the previous financial year and calculate the percentage of revenue derived from purpose-driven*educational projects and clients. We were delighted to find that more than 80% of our revenue from the financial year 2023-24 qualified, based on our calculations. In addition, a significant proportion of this work benefitted traditionally underserved groups*.
With our new stakeholder engagement plan, developed between June and September, we’ve begun a new process of structured engagement with our customers, expanding our existing feedback process with a detailed survey designed to understand their goals and challenges more fully, how effectively we’re addressing them, and what we can do to improve. Our online survey — titled How is our quality and impact? — was sent to 18 clients in November. At this time only four have submitted replies, but we will follow up and look forward to sharing responses in the next report.
We developed and consolidated our policies on a wide range of customer issues (see Governance) and agreed new customer satisfaction standards, set out in our updated customer service policy as follows:
We aim to achieve the following measures for satisfaction for all interactions with customers:
At least 80% for learning interventions, including workshops and coaching
At least 90% for creative work, including copywriting, content and design
We will monitor customer satisfaction via feedback surveys following each assignment.
We will share the results of our customer satisfaction surveys both internally and publicly via our website.
We also expanded our customer accreditations, renewing our status as an FSQS-registered provider, and gaining a new certification with the CPD Group.
The next 12 months
B Corps has given us a formal process for our mission: to make the most positive impact for the people we serve, the community we’re part of and the planet we share. During 2025 we look forward to continuing, while starting to see the investments of 2024 come to fruition.
* B Corps definitions:
Purpose-driven enterprises are organizations that are intentionally designed to create positive social or environmental impact rather than just company profits or shareholder returns. Examples include nonprofit organizations, charities, government organizations, Certified B Corps, benefit corporations, for-profit companies designed to create a specific positive social/environmental benefit (i.e. those with an Impact Business Model), cooperatives, local & independent farms, local & independent community banks, and women and minority-owned businesses.
Underserved is a term used throughout the BIA to describe groups (e.g. populations, individuals, communities, enterprises) that do not traditionally have access to the positive social or economic outcomes delivered by an impactful product or service. Low income, poor, or very poor individuals as well as low income geographic areas are always considered "underserved" in the BIA.