7 Steps To Effective Impact Measurement - v3 - 13.12.16
7 Steps To Effective Impact Measurement - v3 - 13.12.16
7 Steps To Effective Impact Measurement - v3 - 13.12.16
7 Steps to Effective
Impact Measurement
Version 2.0
Keyte & Ridout December 2016
inFocus Enterprises Ltd
CONTENTS
CONTENTS
About This Manual..........................................................................................................3
About The Authors..........................................................................................................4
Using This Manual...........................................................................................................5
What Is Social Impact Measurement?.........................................................................6
1. Work Out Your Approach..........................................................................................9
2. Decide Where To Focus............................................................................................10
3. Develop Indicators....................................................................................................11
4. Plan Your Data Collection.......................................................................................12
5. Develop Data Collection Tools..............................................................................13
6. Collect And Manage Your Data.............................................................................14
7. Using Your Data.........................................................................................................15
Taking The Next Steps With Impact Measurement..............................................16
Acknowledgements
This manual has been developed in consultation with the following partners and their
associated networks of sports based community partners: Laureus Sport for Good
Foundation, streetfootballworld, Clinton Foundation, International Sport and Culture
Association (ISCA) and Move Quality partners.
“We are new to the area of “We have tools and processes in
measuring social impact and are place to measure social impact
looking for advice/resources to and are looking for ideas on how
get started” to improve”
To learn more, and to apply some of Throughout the guide you can also
the key principles there are a set of get an example of how a fictional
free ‘mini-guides’ you can access by organisation; Goals for the Future has
logging into the tools and resources applied the 7 steps in a manual that
section of the inFocus website. can be used to share their approach
to measuring social impact.
You can use the strength of your impact measurement, and results, to
attract new funders (fundraising)
You can use findings from your impact measurement to improve your
activities, leading to better results for your participants (learning &
improving)
You can use findings from your impact measurement to share with
other organisations in the sector and collaborate (collaboration)
The measurement of social impact can take place at different levels, from delivery agencies,
organisations working directly on the ground to address social issues, to funders and
networks that are looking to measure results across the organisations they support.
Monitoring Evaluation
…the systematic and continuous assessment of Evaluations complement ongoing monitoring
the progress of a piece of work over time, which activities by providing more in-depth, objective
checks that things are ‘going to plan’ and enables assessments of the relevance, efficiency,
adjustments to be made in a timely way, integral effectiveness, impact and sustainability of
to day to day management. programmes at a particular point in time.
INTRAC M&E toolkit Oxfam Rough Guide on M&E
Research
Systematic Investigative process employed to increase or revise current knowledge by discovering new facts,
it is divided into two general categories; 1) Basic Research is inquiry aimed at increasing scientific knowledge,
and 2) applied research is effort aimed at using basic research for solving problems or developing new
processes, products, or techniques.
Business Dictionary.com
This guide will take you through 7 Steps to measuring social impact:
Step 2: Decide what to measure by exploring mapping out your programmes with
programme theory and how to prioritise and use learning questions
Step 3: Select/develop indicators that will identify what has take place as a result of
running your activities and to what extent
Step 4: Plan your data collection by selecting the right data collection method, taking
a quality approach to sampling and finalising your indicator framework
Step 5: Develop data collection tools (we focus on questionnaires in this guide) to
collect high quality data
Step 6: Collect and manage your data through effectively deploying data collection
tools, ensuring the data you collect is high quality and secure, and selecting the right
software for your organisation
Step 7: Use the data you collect: effectively analyse and learn from your data to
improve the delivery of your activities, your fundraising and your accountability back to
stakeholders.
TOP TIPS
Learning questions don’t need Further Reading
programme theory to function, you can Click here to find further examples
generate learning questions separately of typical Learning questions from
from programme theory and develop betterevaluation.org
10 indicators
7 Steps to Effective Impact Measurement
STEP THREE
3. DEVELOP INDICATORS
Now you have decided where to focus your
impact measurement it’s time to get into Data is like garbage. You’d
detail and develop indicators, specific pieces
of information that show whether something
better know what you are
has taken place and to what extent (e.g. the going to do with it before
no. of participants that access employment 6 you collect it.
months after the programme). Indicators can
Mark Twain
clarify and guide your impact measurement.
You can find out more about different types of
indicators in our guide here.
TOP TIPS
It’s important to consider whether an
indicator will work in your particular
context, for example, self-esteem
indicators developed in one country
might not be appropriate in another.
We have listed a range of data collection methods you can select from our Prezi guide here.
Sampling
Your next step is to decide whether data will
be collected from all of your target group or
a representative proportion of this, known as
a sample population. Sampling is used when
it isn’t possible to collect data from all of your
participants. Samples can be random (all
participant have an equal chance of being
included) or non-random (respondents are
systematically selected). You can find more
about sampling and control groups in our
guide here.
Avoiding Bias
Bias is defined as a tendency which prevents unprejudiced consideration of a question Whilst
it is impossible to completely eliminate the risk of bias, careful and critical planning, design, and
deployment can help reduce bias.
Further Reading
The Laureus Toolkit, developed in back in
2009, is still an excellent resource for finding
questions already in use. You can access the
guide here.
Training staff in the Piloting tools for relevance Thinking through, and
fundamental tenants of and effectiveness, for planning, when and how
responsibly collecting example, are the questions to deploy your data
high quality data understood by respondents collection tools
Choosing Software
It is also important to consider what software
you will need for entering, managing and
analysing data. There are a number of options
available, from using Excel spreadsheets to
specialist online software designed specifically
for impact measurement. You can find out
more about decisions in relation to choosing
software in our guide here.
Learning from your data is about telling the story of what happened with your activities. We
recommend going through 5 steps to get to the point where you can interpret and learn from your
data:
TOP TIP
Before embarking on the steps to learn
from your data we recommend considering
the time it can take to analyse data and
who you can ask for support.
?
3. Any further questions?
If you have questions, or need further support
with impact measurement, you can contact the
inFocus team here: