Impact is the ultimate goal of all actions by a civil society organisation (CSO). It is clearly defined in the mission and strategy, describing the key ways of reaching it.
The strategy also includes information whom an organisation impacts and what the desired changes look like. When designing projects, hiring staff, choosing an office place, restructuring governance, management systems, etc. – an organisation always keeps in mind a big question “WHY”, its ultimate goal.
Definition of Impact
Cambridge dictionary defines Impact as a powerful effect that something, especially something new, has on a situation or person.
Speaking about Social Impact you will find many definitions but all of them will be around a positive change (significant, meaningful) which addresses social issues (injustice, challenges, etc.)
We would like also emphasise that this is the Change provoking, catalysing Other Changes. It is more a dynamic than a static notion.
Finding ways of amplifying the impact is one of the “Big Questions” of CSOs. There is a theory that you can increase it by two ways: by raising the number of people reached or/and by strengthening the extent, duration and quality. You can read more about it here.
Levels of Changes
Describing Impact as the change, we need to understand its levels and categories.
The most common framework is the KAB model.
Raising the awareness of people, gives more opportunity to influence their attitude towards the issue and their motivation to change their behaviour.
For example, the more young people know about healthy and junk food; the better their skills in cooking are, the more they are motivated to stick to healthy products, rather than to purchase “crisps”. One day, a person grabs an “apple” instead of a habitual “cookie”.
This logic is illustrated better in a pyramid, than in a linear scheme, as we need to understand that the number of people who received knowledge is not equal to the number of people who changed their behaviour.
If you are a project manager think how this scheme relates to the habitual language of logframes, we would recommend you consider the following simplified approach:
Examples
Here are some examples of theories of change and what kinds of changes you can plan and work for.
- Personal vs Societal Impact of Scouting from WOSM
- Character Development of the Y USA
- Impact Report from YMCA Thames Gateway (UK)
Impact Planning
The process of Strategic Planning in a CSO should be a process of impact planning.
You need to understand clearly which changes you anticipate will happen and with whom. Answering these questions will allow you to come up with “how” solutions.
You can read more about the process of strategic planning here.
Impact Measurement
YMCA Europe has entered the project “Measuring Impact: with, for and by youth organisations” with “Bureau Européen du Scoutisme” as a lead, supported by other partners: Maynooth University, YMCA Netherlands, Sojuz na izvidnici na makedonija, Junak, Scouting Ireland, Les Scouts, Scouterna. The duration is 2022-2023.
We are going to:
- collect and analyse the existing impact measurement tools;
- build YMCA Europe Consortium around this topic;
- contribute to development and pilot an impact measurement tool suggested by Maynooth University;
- prepare consultants who can assist in impact measurement.
More information will be shared here.
Let us know if you want to join YMCA Europe Consortium around Impact Measurement!
The project aims at reinforcing the links between policy, research and practice in the field of working with young people by improving the level of evidence of the impact of youth organisations through a robust and recognised research methodology. Ultimately, the project goal is to help strengthen the quality of the educational and developmental activities of youth organisations, in particular the ones offered to young people from disadvantaged areas.
Platforms for Impact Data Collection
When we asked the organisations, how they measure impact and accumulate the data, apart of questionnaires and excel tables we have received the names of the following platforms:
- https://www.upshot.org.uk
- https://www.quickbase.com/platform-evaluation-guide
- https://www.outcomesstar.org.uk
- https://www.lamplightdb.co.uk
- https://artemis.im/what-is-impact-measurement-management
- https://www.salesforce.com
Movement Strengthening in YMCA Europe is aimed at building the capacity of organisations in different spheres including governance, internal policies, quality standards and strategic planning.
The material is created within the project “Organic Governance and Quality Development” supported by Erasmus+, Key Action 2 programme.
