auticon Impact Report

Situation

auticon is an IT social enterprise, providing clients with a neurodiverse workforce to deliver their IT projects. Autistic adults often have extraordinary cognitive and technical abilities, yet many find it difficult to secure or maintain mainstream employment. auticon recognises this situation and is the first international enterprise to exclusively employ autistic adults as consultants, offering a range of services from analytics and software testing through to compliance and security. After a number of years of successful operations, the organisation was keen to improve their approach to impact management and develop a consistent process for defining, measuring and reporting on impact, with a view to publishing a social impact report. auticon UK wanted to publish their first annual impact report in 2019, leading the way for auticon Global the following years too.

Our approach

After delivering training with the team on impact management and measurement, we worked collaboratively with their teams to co-design the Theory of Change for both the auticon UK and auticon Global. We performed a detailed evaluation of their impact, using a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods, which informed their first and subsequent impact reports. The reports outlined key impact statistics as well as a series of detailed case studies with consultants, clients and job coaches to help articulate and communicate their impact to key internal and external stakeholders. The final phase of the projects designed a long-term impact strategy and measurement framework, including a range of bespoke data collection tools for the UK and Global teams.

Our impact

Each year since February 2019, auticon UK and now autcion Global have successfully launched their impact report which has been widely shared both internally and externally, including to their staff, clients and investors. Their first report has received excellent feedback and they have since been shortlisted for the 2019 UK Social Enterprise Awards in the ‘Prove it: Social Impact’ category. Additionally, auticon now has a clearly defined impact strategy that will enable them to measure consistently and robustly, and communicate their impact on consultants, clients and their wider teams going forward.