Making sure you collect the right data helps to ensure you are measuring and communicating your impact more effectively.

One of our clients is a C.I.C.

They run a large activities centre and get most of their income through this. But they wanted to start making an impact. But without an understanding of impact measurement, they weren’t really sure what data they should start collected.

Was measuring the number of attendees enough or did they need more?

We’ve often worked with one of our trusted consultants, Kate Hygate. She’s brilliant at getting a team’s heads together and drawing out what their impact measurement framework should be.

In the case of the aforementioned C.I.C, she went through a Theory of Change process, to help them understand what their outcomes and impact was. The organisation was able to clearly see what their outcomes and impact was and to start measuring it. They could use it as a basis to start justifying the difference they were making to their funders. They could also use it to start understanding the impact they were making and how they could use their data to analyse their impact and tweak their services accordingly.

This client was at the beginning of their journey, but wherever you are, it’s always good to review what data you need to be collecting. Something like a Theory of Change can help you with this. It helps you to make sure you’re only collecting the data you need, and not collecting additional data for the sake of it.

When was the last time you went through a TOC process (or other) for your impact data? How have you found it?