Can Do Collective Producer, Rachel Wallace, reflects on her experience as part of the first cohort of Scotland CAN B’s Impact Economy Advisors Training.
It’s almost three weeks since I finished Scotland CAN B’s Impact Economy Advisors Training alongside 15 entrepreneurial support professionals and business advisors invited to join the very first cohort. The training is designed for those who want to learn how to help the businesses they support to understand, define, measure, and improve their environmental, social and governance performance. Not being a business advisor myself, I was in a unique position aiming to:
- Experience the training first-hand in order to actively signpost and champion it to business advisors within The Can Do Collective and;
- Use the learning to support organisations in The Collective reflect on their own impact measurement practice at both an individual and (crucially for us) a collective level, as a growing cross-sector community of enterprise support professionals serving businesses of all kinds in Scotland.
Among the cohort were a number of organisations who belong to The Collective and align to the vision and values of the Scotland Can Do movement, including Converge, Investing Women, Purpose HR, AAI Employability, and Tech Nation to name a few. This is a real testament to The Collective’s desire to play a leading role in building a wellbeing economy and harnessing business as a force for good.
For me, the training was extremely thought-provoking and challenging, and found myself really looking forward to the next instalment of coaching and peer-learning each week! We covered a variety of content including; connecting to the local and global context of the future of business, frameworks for impact, including the SDGs and Scotland’s NPF, and how to apply them in a business context, in-depth understanding of the broad range of impactful business models and legal structures, and using a selection of comprehensive and cutting-edge impact measurement tools.
The learning from this course and our strategic partnership with Scotland Can B will inform the Can Do Collective’s commitment to define and develop a shared measurement framework that will articulate and demonstrate their contribution to Scotland becoming a world-leading entrepreneurial, innovative and creative society.
This content was broken into 8 modules and together comprised a cyclical, comprehensive and holistic ‘Impact Journey’ of understanding, measuring, and managing social, environmental, and governance performance. The ‘Impact Journey’ methodology covers a lot of ground but is extremely accessible, providing ample opportunity to pause and dig deeper into key topics, tools and frameworks but not lose sight of how each can fit into the overall impact journey an individual, organisation or community might like to embark on.
I would warmly recommend this training to anyone who is interested in growing their impact advisory skillset. You can check out the Scotland CAN B website and join their mailing list or follow on social media to get the latest information about applying for the next cohort this summer!
For businesses looking to understand, define, measure and improve their environmental, social and governance performance, ask your business advisors if they’ve heard of this programme or have taken part, and explore the website for more information on the tools and resources available to support you on your impact measurement journey.
More about Scotland CAN B
Launched by the Scottish Government in 2018, Scotland CAN B exists to build a nationwide culture of business as a force for good in Scotland, as a catalyst for place-based systems change. It is the first nationwide programme of its kind.
Scotland CAN B is an initiative launched in partnership between the Scottish Government and B Lab (the non profit organisation behind B Corp certification) to explore what happens when you combine the entrepreneurial, innovative and business for good ambitions of one country.
Scotland CAN B is on a mission to build a nationwide culture of business as a force for good in Scotland, towards creating a wellbeing economy.
There are two strands to Scotland CAN B’s work:
- Strand #1: Fostering an Impact Culture: Cultivating coherence and alignment in the mindset, language, tools and frameworks used to leverage business for good in Scotland.
- Strand #2: Developing & Delivering Impact Trainings: Supporting businesses learn to measure and manage their social, environmental, and governance performance, and understand their impact towards the SDGs and Scotland’s National Performance Framework, through ‘Impact Journey’ trainings for businesses and business advisors.