Most funders approach impact reporting by communicating these three things:
Case studies about grantees
Amounts spent, split by cause and/or location
Number of grants made, split by cause and/or by location
Whilst this is a good place to start, it only tells part of your story. We help funders go further to measure the difference that your grants have made.
We recognise that as a funder you have three levels of impact:
Aggregate impact: the combined outcomes of the projects you make grants to
Grants Plus impact: the difference that your support makes to your grantees’ projects beyond the financial benefit, for example, increased profile or improved beneficiary recruitment
Strategic impact: the extent to which you are achieving your mission as defined in your Theory of Change
At each level of impact there is the opportunity to report on the outputs and outcomes of your work. That said, decisions about impact measurement need to be mindful of the capacity of grantees so as not to burden them with reporting requirements which are disproportionate to the funding they receive.
At Makerble we use our Impact Measurement Methodology to identify the minimal set of metrics you need to measure and devise practical ways to measure them.
We can work with you across the full gamut of impact measurement or we can focus in on the one or two areas which are most important to you. Typically our work splits into these three phases.
Outcomes Framework: identifying the outcomes and metrics you need to measure
Data Collection: creating a data collection plan and either implementing it ourselves or supporting you to systemise it
Reporting: analysing your data, producing reports and giving you access to interactive dashboards that show you your data in real-time so you can use it to enhance decision-making
Contact us to talk through your current approach to impact measurement and explore how you can take your foundation’s impact measurement to the next level.
