Impact management for public-private partnerships

Organisations we work with

What you get

• Shared goals that hold

  One clear picture of what the partnership wants to achieve, in which every partner recognises its own interest

• Measures everyone trusts

  A small set of indicators that public and private partners agree on, with clear definitions and owners

• One story for many audiences

  Reporting that works for a council, a board of directors and a funder, without three separate reports

• Credit where it is due

  Insight into what each partner contributes, so the partnership stays fair and partners stay on board

• Beyond the pilot

  Evidence and agreements that help you decide what to scale, continue or stop when the partnership phase ends

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 council and the companies in our partnership mean different things by success.”

  We help you make goals explicit for each partner and find the shared outcomes you can steer on together

• “Each partner measures in its own way. Together we have no shared picture.”

  We help you agree a lean set of shared indicators, with definitions and owners, that all partners can live with

• “The council, the boards and the funder each ask for their own report on the same work.”

  We help you build one core report with views for each audience, so you tell one consistent story

• “Partners drop out, because nobody sees what they contribute.”

  We help you show what each partner brings and what it gets back, so the partnership stays balanced

• “The pilot is ending, and nobody knows whether we should scale up.”

  We help you collect the evidence along the way that you need to decide what continues and who takes it on

• “Partners are afraid the others will see their figures. We have been negotiating about it for months.”

  We help you agree what is shared. Each partner keeps its own data and also sees the joint total.

What you may be wondering

• Who pays, and who owns the data?

  We agree that at the start. Each partner keeps its own data. Only the shared set is shared.

• Public and private partners want different things. Can that fit one framework?

  Yes. We make each partner’s goals visible and look for the effects you share. That is what you steer on together.

• Isn’t this too heavy for a pilot?

  The scan takes a few weeks. Then you choose a small set that fits the stage of the partnership.

To read

• In praise of pidgin

  In monitoring and evaluation, partners often want to agree on their words first. Guest writer Ad Korf shows that a shared language grows out of collaboration, and why a makeshift pidgin is a sign of progress.

• The go-betweens

  Between a neighbourhood and the town hall there is often one person who knows both sides. This story is about the people who connect two worlds, what it costs them and how to make their work visible.

• Why slowing down first gets you there faster

  A pilot is under pressure to show results quickly. So measuring often starts too early and thinking too late. On slowing down as a way to speed up, and what the private sector already knows about it.

• Engaging stakeholders: from having a say to deciding together

  Why engaging is more than consulting, how to map stakeholders, and which forms of participation work.