2. I’m not going to give you the web link until the
final slide!
3. Impact Hub South West
Developing a culture of good impact practice
Access to Quality, Expert, Independent support:
– Advice
– Training
– Consultancy
– Resources
– Research
Building on...Proving Our Value Project
• 5 longitudinal case studies to measure impact of SPOs
4. “the broad or longer-term effects of a
project or organisation’s work (also
referred to as the difference it makes). This
can include effects on people who are
direct users of a project or organisation’s
work, effects on those who are not direct
users, or effects on a wider field such as
government policy.”
Inspiring Impact: The Code of Good Impact Practice
A Definition…
6. Measuring our impact – why bother?
• Making good decisions and plan services
• Motivation for staff and users
• Being open and accountable
• Stronger communication of the value of your work to
‘the people that matter’
• Winning business
• Increased understanding of the full social, economic
and environmental impact of your work
7.
8. What else do you want / need to do?
Set some objectives
For example
•Assess the impact our new
toenail cutting service is
having on the perceived
wellbeing of our existing client
group
Or perhaps….
• Assess our social impact on
the community of a
particular parish through
our work in the second half
of 2013 for our own
learning and to help our bid
to the Big Lottery
9. Key Terms
• Inputs - resources invested in your activity
• Outputs - the direct and tangible products from
the activity
• Outcomes - changes to people resulting from the
activity
• Impact - Outcomes over time less an estimate of
what would have happened anyway, who else
might have contributed, impact over time etc.
• Value = relative importance of outcomes to
stakeholders
12. Some Principles
• Clear purpose: A clear mission, aims, objectives, outputs
and outcomes
• Defined scope: Clarity about which aspects of work will be
covered and who will be consulted this time round.
• Engaged stakeholders. Identify relevant stakeholders and
consult them as part of the impact assessment process.
• Transparent: sharing findings with stakeholders
• Regular: not a one-off, a routine part of an organisation’s
work
13. So what are you doing already?
• Regular reports to funders, management, councillors
• Annual report to Charity Commission or CIC regulator
• Collecting customer feedback regarding services
provided
• Complying with formal quality or other external
standards
• Consulting clients, partners or the local community
on planned services or amendments to services
• Other…..
14. Ready, steady, go...
Develop your own Impact framework
(Monitoring on a Shoe String, CES)
Specific aims Outcomes Outcome
indicators
Information
collection
methods
When and by
whom
How to
report
and use
Aim 1
15. Which tools?
• Inspiring Impact – over 139 tools
• Frameworks:
– Social accounting (Social Audit Network)
• Social
– Eg. outcomes stars
• Economic
– Eg. LM3, SROI
• Environmental
– Eg. eco-mapping, EMAS-easy
Or develop your own!
16. Tell the story …
• Include:
– Quantitative outputs
– qualitative narrative
and images
– Financial data and
monetisation where
appropriate,
– Links to relevant
strategies
– Testimony and
anecdotes from range
of perspectives
“We’re more interested in people
telling stories about how their lives
have changed as a result of what
we’ve done. The difficulty with a lot of
impact is that it finds it hard to deal
with narrative”
Dawn Austwick, CEO Big Lottery (speaking whilst
CEO Esmee Fairbarn Foundation)
17. Exercise
How far is your organisation along this
measurement spectrum?
We know what
outcomes we are
trying to achieve
We are measuring
how far we are
achieving those
outcomes
We are able to
define our full
impact
We understand
the value of the
impact we create
to stakeholders
What are your priorities / next steps?
18. Take home messages
• Be clear about your outcomes
• Involve your stakeholders
• Work with your commissioners /
investors
• Collaborate
• Seek Help
Approach to this session:
I’d like to make this a participative session although we have limited time and space I hope we can fit in opportunities for you to focus on the aspects of the subject that are most relevant to you and discuss them with others in the group.
We have 40 minutes or so - too short a time to cover the whole topic in great depth, but hopefully I can cover some of the ground in broad terms and I have created a page of resources for you where you can get more detail about the subject and any documents I refer to in my presentation.
www.southwestforum.org.uk/impact-links
To get us a started though I’m going to do a bit of crude audience research by asking you to raise your hands to a series of questions
Who in the audience would give their organisation a score of 8, 9 or 10 out of 10 for their impact measurement? 5, 6 or 7? Less than 5?
Anyone from the 5 or less group able to share with us why you gave yourself the rating you did – maybe you’re at the stage of just getting to grip with the concepts, keen to start but don’t know where, worried about the time and resources needed to understand your impact, just put your hand up because everyone else did…
Can anyone from the 8-10 group volunteer to share what their organisations is about and why they gave themselves a high rating?
Here’s an opportunity to really show off… Can anyone share a ‘wow statistic’ from their work? Something their organisation has achieved that captures the essence of what you’re about or that you’re really proud of?
Useful to get a sense of who’s here and if you’re sat next to one of the 8,9,10 crowd make sure you learn from their first hand experience while you’re here. If you haven’t got a wow statistic, get one and tell the world about how great you are
Why am I here?
South West Forum: is developing the Impact Hub South West brand to support organisations to better understand, measure and demonstrate the difference they make
This initiative has grown out of a recently completed 4 year SWF project called Proving our Value for which we secured Big Lottery funding. The project encompassed 5 research partnerships between higher education institutions and social purpose organisations and looked at the impact of advice services, social prescribing, voluntary sector infrastructure, employment related training and community development work.
Its original focus was very much on the economic impact of the work studied but each project changed to encompass a broader range of impacts and by the end our dissemination conference last year was entitled ‘In Pursuit of Happiness’ because we found that wellbeing was a theme that ran throughout the impact of each of these organisations.
Full reports, the measurement tools each project developed and used and executive summaries are available if you want to look into these projects for inspiration or useful material in planning your own impact measurement activities.
But before we get too far in…. its always sensible ground ourselves with a shared definition of what we’re talking about, so here is a definition from the Inspiring Impact consortium’s ‘Code of Good Impact practice (worth reading and on the links page!) Arguably one could add that impact can include both intended & unintended consequences and can be positive & negative but lets not quibble it would’ve made it even more wordy and hard to fit on a powerpoint slide… this is a useful foundation to work from.
It is worth also adding the caveat that your impact is only the change that would not have happened anyway.
Value = relative importance of outcomes to stakeholders
Impact = Longer term outcomes less an estimate of what would have happened anyway, who else contributed, what happens over time
So the contribution of others, and the length of time it takes for the outcomes to happen. Impacts often relate to a wider stakeholder group than that which you are targeting and usually involve other providers.
Economic impact:
Direct - increased household income (through more money in or less money out!)
Indirect - spending with smaller, locally based suppliers supporting the local economy
Indirect – generating cost savings to the state
There is a significant interest in Value. That is valuing the relative importance of your impact to different stakeholder groups and there are a range of methods for valuing impact – have a read of our advantages and challenges of impact research approaches document for more on this
TASK – talk to person next to you for a few minutes about what the benefits of impact assessment are or could be for your organisation
So here’s a list I made earlier…
Who is this?
Chris White MP and Social Value Ambassador
The Social Value Act 2012 requires public bodies to consider the full economic, social and environmental value of services commissioned…
Being able to understanding and communicate the full value of the change you create is key in an era of new audiences and structures that you have varied levels of engagement or prior relationships with. How much do GPs understand the health and well-being impacts of your service? What does the local private sector know about the role of the vcs in delivering skills and learning as a driver for growth? How well are you able to quantify your impact in economic and social well-being terms?
Evidencing impact is a key aspect of public sector commissioning that is not going to go away. Though terms are interchangeable – impact referring to outcomes based commissioning
The government is undertaking a review of the Social Value act after a consultation which closed in November and findings are expected soon – we await them with interest but anecdotally I understand Lord Young who conducted the review was sceptical of the act and it’s benefits so an extension of the act seems unlikely but we’ll see…
Locally Cornwall VSF facilitated the social value pilot project last year – anyone here involved or knows about the local picture and is able to say a few words? If not I will source some information and add it to the web page.
Cornwall pilot was looking at measures to gather evidence – enabling Voluntary and Community Organisations to consider the ‘added Social Value’ they create
Working with Commissioners
Developing some guiding principles to underpin Local Authority approach
Look at some key principles and terms around impact measurement
Impact Measurement Cycle really useful
It helps you to consider What, When, Why and who for.
For developing an impact plan you need to understand these key terms and define these within your organisations:
So measuring impact is all about understanding the change that your service and activity creates,
moving beyond outputs
the direct results of your activities, e.g.100 people have achieved a particular qualification, to
Outcomes – changes in the people, the environment, or the community, that result from your activities. For example, this might be: becoming more employable, or reducing crime in an area.
And Understanding Impacts – these are the longer-term changes that you are trying to achieve or contribute to. They take account of what would have
happened anyway, the contribution of others, and the length of time it takes for the outcomes to happen. Impacts often relate to a wider stakeholder group than that which you are targeting and usually involve other providers.
There is also a rising interest in Value. That is: Valuing the relative importance of your impact to different stakeholder groups. There are a range of methods for valuing impact. And a rising interest in putting a financial value or proxy on an outcome as in SROI.
So to get started an organisation needs to be really clear on the difference or change they want to create (outcomes) and then put in place methods for finding out how well they are achieving that change?
SWF is a great advocate of the theory of change process, a simplified model is demonstrated here –detailed guidance has recently been published by New Philanthropy Capital
If we are considering undertaking an impact assessment process – here are some useful things to think about.
For smaller organisations it is particular important to define scope and be proportionate in your efforts,
Don’t need to re-invent the wheel – think about what you are doing already and are you making the most of it. Build on what you already have
be proportionate – keep it simple – start off in one service area & look at another the following year
You might want to draw up an impact plan for your organisation, like this one.
Firstly – make sure you know what outcomes you are trying to achieve and that your organisation’s mission and vision are aligned to these outcomes.
The theory of change process is a great methodology for starting out on the right foot…
Impact assessment can be resource intensive especially with this increasing interest from investors to put a value on outcomes.
Are a whole load of tools to help you – or you could develop your own.
Valorisation has come to the fore with frameworks such as SROI which seeks to put a monetary value on outcomes – but limitations – lack understanding of ratio, misuse, credibility, how appropriate? V useful principles.
Exeter Uni example – Following a return on investment methodology considering the cost of training against changes in an individual’s income / benefit to assess economic impact, but drawing on NEF’s well-being tool to develop an index of social benefits: skills and competencies, social networks, self-esteem, Quality of Life. Unlike fellow POV researchers – they are suggesting that it is not appropriate to put a value on these less tangible benefits, and instead are simply reporting the change in these areas.
Key point: there’s no definitive right way to do this!
Communication is key:
Think about who your communicating to, use a range of methods to describe your impact:
Include:
Quantitative outputs
qualitative narrative and images
Financial data and monetisation where appropriate,
Links to relevant strategies
Testimony and anecdotes from range of perspectives
You can’t assess impact as an add on at the end of the delivery process, processes need to be embedded into all aspects of both the strategic planning cycle and delivery.
You need to decide from the outset what you are trying to achieve or what change you are trying to create and then understand how well you are achieving that change.
Don’t be put off from getting started by perceived complexities – break down the process of measuring your impact into stages and go for it. You will learn a lot about your work along the way and lots of the organisations we’ve worked with have said that the process alone was worth and the results are just the icing on the cake.
Make your impact measurement proportional: it should contribute to your efforts not detract from them.
Don’t reduce your impact to a monetary value – people, places, communities matter, you should tell the story of the difference you made and back it up with evidence. No data without stories, no stories without data.
Share what you’re doing – let others learn from you, involve people in your work, genuine openness is refreshing and builds trust.
Thanks for your time and please do get in touch if we can support your organisation or to share your successes and stories
