Impact First

The social entrepreneur's guide to measuring, managing and growing your impact

Heidi L Fisher

• Publisher: Make an Impact CIC
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780995748651
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Evaluación y valoración en la educación

Impact First: the social entrepreneur's guide to measuring, managing and growing your impact is a guide with step by step actions and much more, for you to successfully measure, manage and communicate your impact. Based on the Lean Social Impact Approach, that Heidi uses with her clients, it takes impact measurement from a complicated, time consuming process to a lean and simplified process. The book covers the underlying principles of impact measurement and management; how to get clear on why you are doing impact measurement; how to define your organisation's ultimate goal; developing a theory of change; how to measure social, community, economic, environmental and tech impacts; methods for measuring impact including surveys and other alternatives; how to analyse and learn from your impact data; creating impact metrics for your staff team and your board; Social Return on Investment (SROI); impact measurement in times of crisis; and the future of impact measurement and management.

SECTION 2: MEASURING IMPACT

CHAPTER 7: WHY BOTHER?

Iam always asking, “Why don’t more people bother to measure their impact?” In my experience, most people don’t understand why they might want to measure their impact. It’s always been presented as something that is forced upon organisations by funders or external agencies, and not usually something that an organisation opts to do.

Herein lies the biggest issue – it makes it appear as if impact measurement is something you have to do rather than something you would want to do. And, when you have to do something what usually happens? You come up with all sorts of excuses!

ALL THE EXCUSES

It’s too complicated. Yes I agree there is a lot of information about that tries to make impact measurement seem really complex. If you choose to read about every available method (there are over 170 different methods) you would definitely end up confused. But the good news is you can use the five stage process in this book to remove the complexity.

It’s too time consuming – it is if you think it’s one person’s job/role. Whereas if you build it into the existing systems, processes and everyone’s jobs then it isn’t. In Chapter 14 you will get to think about this more.

We don’t have the resources – you don’t need a full time monitoring and evaluation person – if you’ve had that perspective you’re looking at it all wrong. Everyone is responsible for impact.

We don’t have the expertise or don’t know how to do it – you don’t need a lot of expertise – you need to ask the right questions and capture the right data based on outcomes and impact, rather than outputs.

We have been around for decades and haven’t had to measure the impact we deliver before. My response is “don’t assume you are having an impact or making any positive change” – just because your business model is about doing something good it doesn’t mean it’s making a lasting difference to peoples’ lives or the environment.

We aren’t measured by outcomes or impact – so you’re going to let external organisations decide what you do? Let’s get real – don’t you want to develop your products or services and continually improve what you do? Don’t you want to be able to get money from customers more easily? Oh, ok, if the answer is no don’t read any further!

And so on. You get the picture. But all these excuses seem crazy to me – it’s a bit like trying to reduce your blood pressure but never measuring it – because you just think what you’re doing is working. For me, I’ve found the biggest reason organisations don’t do it is fear – fear that they will find out what they are doing is not that great or impactful. As with all messages about fear – you have got to feel the fear and do it anyway. It will be enlightening – as you’ll be able to look at what’s working and what’s not and improve things (if you need to).

Let’s bust a few myths about impact measurement and data while you are here:

•Your impact data does not need to be of a higher standard or quality than your other types of data

•You do not need to consult everyone

•You do not need to measure everything

If these myths were true then impact measurement would be a full time job, every organisation would be scared to publish their data for fear of external scrutiny and your data collection methods would be so complex they probably would not work in real life.

THE BENEFITS

Now let’s think about the benefits of measuring and managing your impact:

•Better staff retention and engagement, and more understanding of your organisation’s purpose

•Ability to market your organisation more easily – you have a compelling impact story

•Increasing levels of impact through continual improvement and delivery that is focused on impact not outputs

•Evidence for funding, contracts and investment – you can detail the impact you have

•Stakeholder engagement – it’s a great way to have conversations with your various stakeholders and to get their input

•Strategic alignment – this is the biggie – your strategy becomes focused on delivering impact and the best ways you can do it, rather than simply delivering products or services.

WHY DO YOU WANT TO MEASURE YOUR IMPACT?

I talked about this in Chapter 4, but this crucial question is often overlooked, and it is important that you are clear about why you are measuring impact, and have identified the audience and the purpose for capturing impact data. Many organisations simply jump straight in and say we need to measure our impact, or we need some impact data for this project for a funder, and forget to step back and think strategically about impact measurement.

But, if you get clarity on why you want to do impact measurement, then it won’t be a rushed or sped up thing, it will be part of your on-going processes and it will be planned. The end result will be that is adds more value to your organisation strategically too.

When I am working with organisations I ask them to prioritise the purpose of their impact measurement based on the following:

•To report back to a funder

•To communicate what you do and your impact

•To make sure you are operating effectively

•To identify where you can make improvements

•To evidence how you comply with the Social Value Act

•To identify the potential savings you make for the public sector

•To monetise your social value and calculate a SROI figure

Having a clear why will then assist with deciding what you want to focus on measuring:

•Your social impact

•Your environmental impact

•Your economic impact

•All three (social, economic and environmental impact)

•A specific project/area of your work

Then, finally, decide what your internal capacity to undertake impact measurement is, as this will give you an idea of how to structure the impact measurement.

•You have limited resources (time, money and staff) and are new to impact measurement

•You are experienced in using impact measurement systems

•You are committed to measuring your impact but staff have little time to implement this

•You have lots of data but currently don't do anything with it and need help to establish systems and ways to analyse this data

With clarity around these three areas you can start to dive in to measuring your impact. These questions are included in the free downloadable resources – in the Social Value Checklist (see the Free Resources section at the end of the book). Of course, for some of you, the purpose and areas of focus will be funder led, but this really does miss the opportunity to achieve so much more. The following Chapters focus on the five stages of the Lean Social Impact Approach.

CHAPTER 8: DEFINE

Define is the first stage of the Lean Social Impact Approach. In this stage you define your ultimate goal. You may refer to this as your vision or mission, and is the big picture view of what the world looks like if you are successful. It should not describe the activities, products or services you deliver. It should be focused on the difference those activities, products or services make. If you have started on developing an Impact Led Strategy (see Chapter 3) you will hopefully have defined your ultimate goal.

This is by far the most important part of the Lean Social Impact Approach, as it sets you up nicely to put all your ducks in a row to simplify your impact measurement. It sounds easy but very often organisations are created to deliver a product or service, and the longer-term purpose has not been thought about.

To start the process of defining your ultimate goal, answer these three questions:

1.What problem are you solving?

2.What does the world look like when you have achieved your ultimate goal?

3.What difference does this make to peoples’ live and/or the planet?

Once you’ve answered these questions, look for common themes and then write out your ultimate goal as a statement - ideally around 15 words. Examples include:

•A world where all businesses are social enterprises that positively impact people and the planet (that’s our vision at Make an Impact CIC)

•A world without poverty

•Equal rights for everyone

•...