At The Foundation for Social Improvement (FSI), we have been spending more and more time working on impact measurement; our members and consultancy clients are increasingly interested in this field. When we ask them why this is, alongside checking their performance and ensuring programmes are successful, charities often say it is because they want to develop better relationships with their funders, or bring new ones on board.

Demonstrating your impact is the best way of telling your story as an organisation and this is a great way to engage with donors – from people who give a few pounds a month through to trusts giving six-figure sums. Organisations need to move beyond using outputs when discussing the change they make.

Even the process of doing it can be a useful one. Following a recent piece consultancy work where we had written an Impact Report, a client commented: “The process gave staff and volunteers the opportunity to step back from the day-to-day and to think about our roots, achievements, challenges and future. The resulting impact report continues to provide a concise and thoughtful overview of our work to other funders.”

An excellent example of using impact in fundraising is SolarAid and its brilliant impact calculator. We are all aware of the concept of a shopping list in fundraising, but this takes it one step further to show the impact that smaller donations can have. Instead of buying three solar lights for £10, you could be buying over 3,000 hours of child study time and helping half a dozen people experience better health.

The best examples we see rely on understanding the audience for impact data, ensuring the correct data was collected and communicating it in a compelling way. A few tips for implementing a good impact measurement system:

- Put together a model to understand your outcomes and impact (e.g. a Logic Model or Theory of Change)

- Consider the audiences you need to share your impact with, and then decide what messages they are interested in

- Focus on your outcomes (impact being a broader, longer-term change can make this a tricky thing to do. Instead measure your outcomes, and link this to impact using case studies or external statistics)

- Audit your monitoring and evaluation systems – are you collecting the right data to show your outcomes and also to engage funders?

- Collect a mix of data – quantitative and qualitative. You should be telling a story to both the head and heart of funders

- Send out your impact to anyone who might be interested – shout it from the rooftops!

The above was adapted from a longer article originally published in The Fundraiser - https://www.charitychoice.co.uk/the-fundraiser/3-examples-of-brilliant-impact-reporting/668