Between P&Ls, marketing & sales data, and employee KPIs most organizations can measure their success by looking at revenue-related metrics. However, nonprofits and purpose-driven organizations or teams need to leverage alternative frameworks to determine their success.
Impact measurement is a top priority for most nonprofit or purpose-driven leaders and only 20% believe they are “very effective” at demonstrating impact. 30% of those leaders cited the lack of an impact tracking system as one of the challenges of effective impact measurement.
This article introduces a powerful framework for defining and measuring short and long-term impact. While it comes from the non-profit world, it can also serve as a relevant framework for for-profit organizations that want to measure impact beyond profits.
What is impact measurement?
When organizations implement activities, projects, or initiatives, they create certain effects that are either intended or unintended. Impact measurement is the process of systematically identifying, quantifying, and assessing these effects. It allows organizations to analyze the social, environmental, and economic changes brought about by these initiatives. By tracking the results of change initiatives, leaders can determine whether they're achieving their desired goals.
Why is impact measurement important?
Impact measurement improves decision-making. Understanding the impact of organizational actions allows leaders to refine strategies and allocate resources more efficiently. For example, if a corporate’s People & Culture department wants to justify a high budget, they can measure the impact of their initiatives on organizational performance using employee engagement metrics, such as the Net Prompter Score, and pair it with existing workplace research.
Measuring impact allows organizations to be transparent about their goals and the results they're achieving. This is especially important for businesses with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals or those seeking impact investments.
It also helps leaders demonstrate positive change. For initiatives aiming to create positive social or environmental change, impact measurement provides evidence of their success. This is crucial for attracting funding, raising awareness, and gaining public support.
All impact measurement methods rely on a foundation: the theory of change as a starting point.
What is the Theory of Change?
The Theory of Change is a powerful tool for impact evaluation, providing a logical framework to understand, evaluate, and represent the effects of an organization’s activities. Think of a Theory of Change as a roadmap. It helps organizations articulate their positive impact beyond measuring what they do (activities) but also measuring the so what? (outcomes and impact). We begin by outlining the long-term goals and then work backward to identify all the necessary inputs, activities, and outcomes needed to get there.
Here’s a breakdown of the 5 levels of a Theory of Change (as shown in the diagram) with examples for an art institution:
Input: an organization’s available resources for a specific project or function e.g. financial resources, the team, art programming spaces or other assets.
Activities: the main deliverables of the project or organization e.g. art exhibitions, educational programs, and artist grants.
Outputs: the immediate results of the organizational activities e.g. # of visitors, increase in size of catalog.
Outcomes: the desired results and benefits of the activities & outputs e.g. inclusive representation of local artists in programming and documentation.
Impact: the tip of the pyramid is the long-term impact resulting from an intervention e.g. developing a thriving and inclusive local art scene.
How does the theory of change help measure and track impact?
Once the Theory of Change is defined, we design the impact measurement framework which translates each level of the Theory of Change into specific metrics and data collection methodologies.
We worked with many regional impact-focused teams and organizations in defining and documenting their Theory of Change which helped identify specific KPIs for tracking their performance and demonstrating their value.
The policy team of a global company, for example, was challenged with defining and communicating their distinct value-add within the organization especially given that their function’s scope overlapped with that of other teams. We worked with the team on documenting their Theory of Change based on their scope and mission. This allowed the team to identify their short-term and long-term impact goals and quantify their success. The theory of change then translated into measurement mechanisms, annual KPIs and targets, as well as, quantitative content to support the internal and external communication of their activities.
At Cosmic Centaurs, we recognize the challenges faced by leaders in quantifying and demonstrating the success of impact missions. Our team helps leaders of nonprofit organizations and teams measure performance in a meaningful way. To learn more about how we might be able to help you identify, track, and report short-term and long-term impact book a 1-on-1 consultation with one of us.
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