Nimbus Disability is a social enterprise run for disabled people by disabled people to provide innovative accessibility solutions. We advised Nimbus Disability as part of our 2022 HL BaSE Training program and had the chance to catch up with Mark Briggs, the Director of Partnerships at Nimbus Disability, to discuss the impact the business has had to date, and the role legal advice plays in enabling impact.
"Having that external review through HL BaSE was absolutely key to getting us to where we are today."
Mark Briggs, Director of Partnerships at Nimbus Disability
Can you share a bit about your journey to becoming the Director of Partnerships at Nimbus Disability? What inspired you to take on this role?
I used to work in local government, Nottinghamshire County Council, before joining Nimbus. I initially joined Nimbus some years ago as a NED. Therefore, I understood what the business needed and where we needed to take the social enterprise to grow. I have worked for many charities in the past, including as Vice Chair for Portland College in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire. I also worked in the sports sector. I used to run a sports management company called 19eleven Limited alongside Richard Whitehead. The aim of which was to create a viable income for Paralympic athletes by way of supporting them in developing their skills and to reach out to corporate partners. In this role, I worked with Hogan Lovells in many areas, including developing the initial concept of the Nicholas Cheffings Para Athlete Bursary and to arrange for Ollie Hynd MBE to become the Hogan Lovells ParalympicsGB Ambassador.
In your own words, how would you describe the mission of Nimbus Disability and the core values that guide your work?
The essence of our work is to not just enable disabled people to participate in life in general, but to have a lifetime of opportunity. We are run by disabled people, for disabled people. We started as a B2B consultancy in response to the Equality Act and have developed into a tech company over the past 10-15 years. We are not a campaigning organisation. There are a lot of great campaigning organisations out there, but that is not the type of work we do- we're the engine room. We come up with creative and innovative solutions that turn a campaign into reality.
Do you think that shift from B2B consultancy primarily to a creative business happened naturally or was there a deliberate point?
I think we realised that technology allows you to have a deeper and wider impact. The switch primarily came from one of our products – the Access Card for which we won the Queen’s Award for Innovation in 2022. The card was designed to be piece of plastic that displayed accessibility requirements, and we realised that the information could be interwoven into other systems. Integrating the information into systems makes booking processes effortless, and allows for a consistency in the customer service and booking experience. Big data, bigger impact!
We base all our work on the Social Model of Disability: Both Martin, Nimbus' founder, and I have a high level of amputation. Martin uses crutches and I use a wheelchair. On the face of it we have the same Medical Model of Disability but our accessibility requirements are completely different, this is the Social Model. Our core belief at Nimbus is that disabled people are disabled because of the environment, be it physical, digital or cultural. This is the methodology at the core of all our solutions. It's about utilising technology to bring about systemic change by removing these barriers.
Could you describe your customer base?
We have several customer bases. The first one consists of the end-customer, the disabled people who are directly impacted by our work both in terms of policy changes and improved access. Then we work with "Tier 1 Organisations" such as Merlin Entertainments and these organisations have third-party providers who integrate our solutions, e.g., a ticketing system providers. We are the broker joining up all the dots and bringing these parties together, with one common aim, improving access across all sectors.
Do you see any direct benefit from acting as the "broker"?
Yes of course, it's mutually beneficial because everyone sees the positive impact of the solution and we can avoid mission drifting. We drive consistency in disabled peoples access requirements as well as protecting these reasonable adjustments for those business and service providers we work with.
Can you describe the process of selecting partners? What criteria do you prioritise to ensure alignment with Nimbus Disability's values and objectives?
We don't market ourselves. The majority of our customers come to us through key partners and providers who see the improvement internally and spread the word. We have a so called "freemium model" which used the wider business operation to cross subsidise our onboarding of smaller provisions, in the main, for free to those businesses. The key for us really is consistency to allow for the same online booking and customer service at the local theatre as at big venues - we use a different approach for the smaller venues but ultimately, we want to achieve the same result for the user across the whole sector. For example, the local providers might have box office rather than an online booking system, whereas we can introduce our systems and ticketing operations. We are also looking to expand beyond the live entertainment family attractions sectors. We already have interest in the 'blue light service' around effective integrations in emergency situations.
How do you measure Nimbus Disability’s impact? Are there specific metrics or outcomes you focus on?
It is hard to measure the impact. We have lots of qualitative feedback from the businesses we work with and from the disabled people who have benefited from our product, but we also wanted a figure. So, we look at the number of API data pulls. Every time data gets pulled, someone is using the Access Card. Last year, this happened 2.1 million times and we were the enabler of those transactions. We also donated £340,000 in surplus revenue to our sister charity, Disability Direct, based in Derby.
Given the unique challenges and considerations in the field of disability advocacy and accessibility, what role does legal advice play in delivering impact?
We needed legal advice most during our time of growth. We needed help and support on our constitution to figure out how we can best organise internally to allow for growth. This required an understanding of the complexities of enabling the interaction of a framework and constitution built over 20 years ago and a social enterprise which had the potential to be a multi-million-pound funding business. Having that external review through HL BaSE was absolutely key to getting us to where we are today.
How has HL BaSE helped you as an organisation?
HL BaSE was really good in giving us a personal element to the advice that we received. There were 6-8 people who helped us out and I think that everyone who was a part of it really understood what we do and the benefit of our work. Equally, we were thankful of the 360 approach, integrating the 'what and 'why' we were operating in certain ways. This was a great and reassuring partnership thought the HL BaSE time of support, and in such a personable approach.
Find out more about Nimbus Disability here, and watch their latest video on the Access Card here.