Leaders in the sector have a critical role to play to embed an impact approach throughout their work. We want to help charities and social enterprises know what good impact practice looks like, and encourage good impact leadership so they can take steps to improve. This work is led by NCVO and ACEVO.
Read about our work under this theme below.
Code of Good Impact Practice
Charities and social enterprises wanting to measure impact can be faced with many different methods and definitions. It can be difficult to know what approach or level of detail is appropriate for your organisation. Inspiring Impact aims to provide clarity about what good impact measurement practice looks like, to help charities and social enterprises measure better.
Inspiring Impact has developed a Code of Good Impact Practice for charities and social enterprises, taking inspiration from the Code of Good Governance. The code sets out what good practice looks like for charities and social enterprises, and what methods are appropriate for different sizes and types of organisation. Following a draft code for consultation in February 2013, we published the final version in June.
Making the case for an impact approach
Many leaders of charities and social enterprises see only the costs associated with impact measurement, and not the benefits – this is one reason for the lack of investment in impact measurement.
Inspiring Impact has developed a document to set out the case for an impact approach, exploring the benefits – including how focusing on impact can help improve services, motivate frontline staff and reduce monitoring burdens – and weighing these against the costs of measurement.
We are also keen to spread examples of good practice through publications such as Evaluation Support Scotland’s good practice case study report.