In the current political climate, where there are ever increasing pressure on cultural organisations to “show their worth” and articulate clearly their offer, it is timely that CEiS bring Demonstrating Valueuk© to the market.
By enabling creative organisations to define their critical information needs, Demonstrating Valueuk© provides clear, interactive information in a concise and digestible manner. As such, it offers an invaluable tool for management, planning, attracting funds and meeting accountability demands. Its ability to compare, contrast and draw out the key performance indicators of an organisation prevent the need for numerous, lengthy reports; spreadsheets and analysis. Instead, the reader is drawn into the snapshot, and can click on pertinent information that is of interest and relevant to its audience.
Many creative organisations are now moving towards social enterprise – away from grant reliance and towards a mix of grant and income generation.
As such they are often required to:
- Work across the communities in which they operate
- Provide a range of offerings
- Work across a range of policy areas (such as cultural planning, social inclusion etc.)
- Be responsive to aspirations of service users
- Be credible in the eyes of external stakeholders;
- Be able to respond to the dynamics of local and regional markets.
How to concisely and effectively communicate this, and prove its worth is challenging – yet Demonstrating Value allows this to happen by valuing and measuring this approach and its impact
As the UK faces the consequences of a period of severe recession, and as policy makers grapple with the associated challenges, there is a need to show our adaptability, define the nature of the problem, map out issues affecting cultural organisations, and offer advice on what works. Demonstrating Value allows organisation to carry out this type of reporting as well as an informing and lobbying approach.
This is set against advice from Richard Reeves, outgoing director of political think-tank Demos and soon to be fiscal strategist to Nick Clegg, who has recently given advice to social enterprise leaders on how to thrive in the new ‘era of austerity’. He said: ‘You must…get better at measuring impact. This is the game now.’
Stephen Bubb, CEO of Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (ACEVO), reinforced Reeves’ advice saying that even though the ‘incessant drumbeat of cuts’ was playing, ‘adversity always drives opportunity’ and it was vital that organisations be innovative and build upon impact and transparency.
Set against this, it seems timely and appropriate that CEiS launch their tool, Demonstrating Value, into the market. As a competitively priced product that can be developed in lines with the needs of an organisation it provides the opportunities for Social Enterprises to ‘prove their worth’. It allows them to explore their activities and outputs in relation to key National and local objectives, internal targets and deliver this as an integrated communications method to identified key stakeholders. In addition it can be used as an essential part of strategic & business planning, a Management Information System, Annual report and Marketing tool. Thus standing out from the market as more than ‘just another report’.
For more information please contact: Tania Morlan, Development Officer , 0141 425 2929, tania.morlan@ceis.org.uk