Charities: one core set for all your funders

Organisations we work with

We met some of them through Impact Hub Amsterdam’s Food Chain Accelerator, ABN AMRO’s Impact Nation and Impact Hub Amsterdam’s Regeneration Program.

What you get

• Stronger grant applications

  A theory of change and outcome evidence ready before the next application

• Less reporting work

  One base for grant reports, your annual report and donor updates

• Learning from your programmes

  Insight into what works, for whom, so you can adjust programmes in time

• Clear board reporting

  A small dashboard that links activities to the outcomes your board cares about

• Credible with funders

  Honest evidence that shows what you contribute, without overclaiming

Why we do what we do

Read the film as text

1. We all want to know
2. our place in the world.
3. Thin grey lines join dots into a web.
4. We like to believe that what we do is part of something larger.
5. It is.
6. Together we make our surroundings, our brands, our communities.
7. We shape the work of others, as they shape ours.
8. The web grows dense.
9. We live in one web of cause and consequence.
10. Each path tells a story, part of a larger narrative.
11. A system of meaning.
12. So what is our impact?
13. Whose lives do we touch?
14. What changed? For whom? How much? And what part was ours?
15. Intended or not, for better or worse.
16. Knowing that changes what you do next.
17. A dark line draws a path through the web. Impact management helps you see it, steer it, and use it.
18. A large word: Lead. A purple path runs through the web. Lead with purpose, and fund your mission.
19. A large word: Improve. A green path runs through the web. Learn what doesn’t work and design for better.
20. A large word: Engage. A blue-green path runs through the web. Share your story, and bring others into it.
21. A large word: Account. A blue path runs through the web. State your claim, and prove it.
22. A large word: Discover. A yellow path runs through the web. Find your next impact before it happens.
23. “How do you measure impact?”
24. It sounds hard.
25. It isn’t.
26. It’s not about the how.
27. It’s about
28. Portraits of people fill the screen.
29. A large word: Who.
30. About rights-holders, whose lives are touched.
31. And stakeholders, whose choices shape them.
32. The people stand side by side, at the same height. A wave of colour runs through the web. Every voice, every perspective, equally weighed.
33. The web turns many colours. Pluriform and equivalent.
34. Who determines what.
35. And what determines how.
36. That’s it. No more, no less.
37. We count what can be counted, and listen to the rest.
38. Coloured paths wind across the web. We find the stories that connect the dots, and make sense of the whole.
39. We love our craft:
40. to ask the questions,
41. to measure what matters,
42. and narrate what works.
43. One dark path remains. Let’s reveal your path.
44. The word narrate, with the line: impact in numbers and stories.

What we often hear

• “Funders ask for evidence of impact, and we mostly have stories from the field.”

  An outcome measurement framework with a baseline, so you have evidence ready when funders ask

• “We spend so much time on reporting that the real work suffers.”

  Build data collection into the intake, sessions and evaluations you already run

• “The supervisory board asks for impact figures, but which ones show we’re effective?”

  Choose a few outcome indicators and present them in a board report that supports decisions

• “Every funder wants different indicators. We do the same work three times.”

  Map funder requirements onto one core set, so you measure once and report many times

What you may be wondering

• Every funder wants something different. Won’t this just add work?

  We put your funders’ requirements side by side and find the overlap. You measure one core set and translate it for each funder.

• Can we keep this going when the grant ends?

  We build measurement into what you already do, such as intake, meetings and evaluations. Your team learns it, so it doesn’t depend on a tool or on us.

• How do we know our claims hold up?

  We are honest about what you can and cannot show. You show what your organisation contributes, without claiming all the credit.

To read

• How measuring shapes decisions

  We measure to make better decisions, we say. Yet the decision is often made somewhere else. On how monitoring and evaluation really shape decisions, and what helps.

• The glass ceiling of a self-managing team

  At a large public organisation we set up an Impact & Insights team. We saw how far a team gets when it manages its own work by its impact. And where it gets stuck: not on people, but on fear, and on meetings that turn into an arena.

• The space in between

  Between what ends and what has yet to begin lies a space without a fixed shape. What that space in between is, why organisations rush to fill it, and what you can learn there.

• From M&E to MEALP

  For fifty years, monitoring and evaluation has kept gaining letters: an L, an A, a P, an R. The history of an acronym that keeps growing, and what each letter says about who was forgotten at first.

All articles for this group (17)