Like, for so many others, 2022 has been a challenging year for The Circle, battling the after-effects of Covid, an energy crisis, and two moves.
We wanted to share a snapshot of what has been happening in the year of The Circle and some reflections from our CEO, Kirsty.
The Circle team crowdsources our 20 highlights.
- Moving into a 13th-century castle and calling Dudhope Castle our headquarters – read more about it here
- The support from many organisations. The Scottish Government, Michelin Scotland Innovation Parc, Dundee City Council, Northwood Charitable Trust, The Rank Foundation, and Glasgow City Council, to name a few.
- Increasing our Glasgow tenants by 250% – read more about it here
- Working with Ukrainian lawyers to launch our Hidden Talents programme for Ukrainians displaced by the war – read more about it here
- Kickstarting our Consultancy service and supporting organisations to grow, such as sustainable supermarket, The Little Green Larder
- Securing a consultancy contract from Just Enterprise to support social entrepreneurs in the Tayside area.
- Restarting our Volunteering programme, which led to the hiring of Eileen, our front-of-house in Glasgow.
- The launch of our Social Impact Report in October 2022 and the creation of our first hybrid launch event.
- Bringing back The Circle Networking events in both Dundee and Glasgow. Creating special networks and opportunities for the wider community, including securing funding for the Hidden Talents project.
- The launch of our More Than Profit® journal and securing the trademark rights to the More Than Profit® concept – watch our video explainer here
- Lighting up of Dudhope Castle as part of Dundee by Light – see more photos here
- Running the largest cohort of The Circle Academy to date and seeing the confidence in our social entrepreneurs soar, including Jess from Open Project, who won the Pitch Contest.
- Supporting many high-school pupils with internships and work experience amounting to over 200 hours.
- Continued to pay our staff the national living wage, including topping up funded positions.
- Our team has grown significantly. We now employ 20 members of staff.
- We were finalists for seven acclaimed awards and won three – you can read more over here
- Enabling a work-life balance for our staff by continuing the 4-day work week. The team have enjoyed long weekends without a cut to their pay and no additional hours – here are our lessons learned
- The Circle offered members of staff mental health support by working collaboratively with one of our tenants, a chartered psychologist.
- Piloted two repurposed energy-efficient mobile office pods at our MSIP site, and Dundee Bairns and Partners in Advocacy are their first occupants.
- We have supported 28 tenants across our three hubs with a base for their organisations. These include community groups, national charities, social enterprises and profitable businesses.
Kirsty, our CEO, has been reflecting on the six years The Circle has been supporting our community of socially aware businesses, charities, volunteers, etc.
Kirsty Thomson, Founder and CEO of The Circle – Six Years of The Circle
When my younger sister Elaine was diagnosed with profound and multiple learning disabilities as a child, our family received amazing support from several charities. Organisations such as Barnardo’s and PAMIS helped us face the challenges posed by Elaine’s Microcephaly diagnosis, especially as she requires 24/7 care.
As a teenager, I wanted to repay charities for our support, so I became a fundraiser, organising events from sponsored walks, sponsored silences, cake sales and charity events. I wanted to make a difference, but as I grew older, I realised that charities need more than donations and public generosity to impact society positively.
In 2012, with the help of a tiny bit of funding from New Deal for Enterprise and Dundee City Council and a great business advisor, Arash Gillan, I set up a consultancy business, Along Came Kirsty (later ACK Third Sector Consultants CIC), to help charities and social enterprises become more sustainable and financially independent. Along Came Kirsty, who specialised in grant proposals, fundraising campaigns and business planning for charities and social enterprises. Our business and fundraising skills were immediately in demand, and it was easy to understand why.
Business skills and experience are essential for any organisation aiming to grow long-term. These skills must be a top priority for those looking to make a social impact.
While the sector is excellent at delivering vital support, businesses have often been seen as somehow incompatible with a social impact ethos. To me, this felt like a challenge – I wanted to change that mindset and give these organisations the business tools they needed to grow stronger, be more sustainable and impact their communities.
So, in 2016, I set up The Circle, a CIC (community interest company), to offer training, support and affordable office space. Everything we do at The Circle is about ‘More Than Profit®’. At its heart, a More Than Profit® business aims to make a profit which will, in turn, fund positive social change. The more profit you generate, the more you can reinvest and the larger your scope for making a real and lasting difference.
In late 2016, I burned out: running one enterprise and not managing to pay myself to live but deciding this was a great time to launch another business. It was tough running two social enterprises, having two boards and two staff teams, and I felt like everything was failing. With support from my boards in September 2017, I participated in Saltire Fellowship through Entrepreneurial Scotland, and I can truly say this was life-changing. It gave me a new perspective on my work, on business, the third sector and how I felt about money. It helped me to understand the difference money can make to a social business and shifted me away from a survival or scarcity mindset. This is a barrier for many people who run social enterprises and charities.
Ultimately, I made big changes. I received support to build the board of The Circle and, in turn, the operations team.
I have always tried to do things differently, moving away from the silos that separate sectors and structures. So far, this approach seems to be working. The Circle merged with ACK Third Sector Consultants CIC in 2019, and we now manage over 45,000 square feet of affordable, accessible office space in Dundee and Glasgow. Our tenants include startups, charities, social enterprises and community groups.
The Circle Academy, funded by Foundation Scotland, The Rank Foundation and The Scottish Government, offers business planning, marketing, governance and strategy training to charities, social enterprises and community groups.
The Academy aims to give employees and volunteers of these organisations, including those with additional support needs, the tools required to be as successful as they can be. For many, this leads to a career in charities or social enterprises, which are well-placed to be more inclusive.
I want more people to consider careers in social enterprise and charity. I have seen first-hand how good leadership can support people to grow and develop within an organisation. It’s about caring for employees’ health, well-being, and development by providing learning opportunities.
I am very proud that at The Circle, we pay all our staff a living wage and have been working a four-day week since 2021. We have seen the benefits already in more engaged team members, a higher staff retention rate and less time off for sickness. Through The Circle and the brilliant team, I have finally found a way to make a long-term difference. We continue to invest in our team, and I continue to invest in my professional development, recently completing Scale Up Scotland through The Hunter Foundation and Impact Investing at Oxford University.
There are still plenty of challenges ahead, and these continue to face all organisations working in the third sector, with funding cuts and changes in policy. We must keep The Circle going while staying flexible enough to deal with change and problems – such as Covid, the cost of living crisis, energy, and managing buildings. The pandemic slowed us down, and the energy crisis hit just when we thought we were getting things moving. To be resilient, we must react to what our community requires to ensure their services and the communities they impact continue to get the support they need.
However, while I am grateful we can still be helpful, I will only consider my job done when charities and social enterprises no longer need to call in external consultants to manage their organisation and when business schools at universities and colleges are promoting a different way of doing business and providing placements, skills and a pathway for talent into social enterprise and charities.
I want to see a time when the third sector’s workforce delivers vital services and support in their communities and has the skills and confidence to balance the books, strategise and build their way into a stronger, long-term ‘More Than Profit®’ future.
I want to thank our board of non-executive directors for their ongoing support of the team over this past year. My team at The Circle have shown determination, hard work and resilience in this demanding year, and I cannot thank them enough. Finally, our community, tenants, clients, and funders thank you for continuing to collaborate with us.
Have a fantastic break. We hope you can give your body and mind the rest it needs at the end of another testing year.
We will see you on the 4th of January, 2023!!
Kirsty and The Circle team.
