Impact of regional programmes and funds

Organisations we work with

What you get

• Your contribution to the region made visible

  An intervention logic from activities to regional outcomes, so you can show what a programme or fund adds, including for broad prosperity

• Impact goals for investment funds

  Impact criteria for investment decisions and portfolio monitoring that sit alongside financial returns

• Ready for ERDF and JTF

  Indicators and evidence that meet European programme requirements and also serve your own steering

• Transition programmes you can steer

  Intermediate outcomes and early signals for energy and circular programmes whose effects take years to show

• Accountability to the provincial council

  Clear, honest reporting that answers what members of Provinciale Staten want to know

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

• “The provincial council wants to know what a programme does for the region. Our reports mostly list projects and money spent.”

  We help you describe the route from activities to regional outcomes, and report on it in a way members can follow

• “Our fund has impact goals, but each investment is assessed differently. I can’t see the portfolio as a whole.”

  We help you set impact criteria for selection and monitoring, so you can show what the portfolio adds up to without asking too much of entrepreneurs

• “Our energy programme needs years for its full effect, but the decision to continue comes sooner.”

  We help you identify intermediate outcomes and early signals that show whether the programme is on track

• “ERDF reporting asks for fixed indicators that say little about what we want to know.”

  We help you combine the required indicators with a few that fit your own questions, collected in one go

• “Businesses, knowledge institutions and municipalities work on the same regional agenda, but each measures in their own way.”

  We facilitate agreement on shared outcomes and indicators, so partners contribute to the same picture

What you may be wondering

• Can this sit alongside the ERDF or JTF indicators?

  Yes. We combine the required indicators with a few that fit your own questions. You collect them in one go.

• Won’t this ask too much of the businesses in our fund?

  We keep the criteria few and use what businesses already report. If you won’t use it, we don’t ask for it.

• Have you done this before?

  For Oost NL we built an impact framework for the Smart Energy Hubs programme. The Province of Noord-Brabant is also among our clients.