How do you evaluate and communicate your social impact to your board and funders?

There is a lot of great wisdom written about social impact and its measurement and communication. I have one thing to add; remember that impact is in the eye of the beholder. This, I believe, is critical in terms of how one designs impact recording and reporting. Start asking: - who do I want to tell and what do I want them to know and believe? - why do I want this? These set a simple but important framework. Then ask: - what level of evidence do they need to understand and believe? Especially if they then have others to convince. - what language and format do they best consume? Again, remember any need they may have for onward communication. You capture only what they need to be convinced and you present in a way that is most useful.

I don’t think you need a ToC. Outputs are what your produce, outcomes are the near term benefit you create and impact the difference you wish to make. Look ahead a year or 2, assume you have achieved all you might realistically do. The change you have made is your impact. What will you have achieved to get there? Those are your strategic objectives. You can measure 4 things - quantity, quality, time and cost. What external benchmarks are there you can compare your results to, or maybe use previous years. Use SMART in setting objectives - Simple, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timely.

Charity Excellence Framework automatically assess the extent to which you are achieving the impact you could be. It’s free.

SROI is the method which we applied in our organization for more than 3-year. We have found the precautions in using SROI. 1) Attributions: Generally, companies will progress their work with collaboration with others. In the method we need to deducted the attributions from others. So, we need to clarify every time we reported SROI to our boss. 2) The discount rate: In the organization which has many objectives in the activities. Some projects need return on Investment, but some projects are implemented for charity. So the discount rate is different. However, in the same reporting chart, it should not be different in calculation. The number will lead the misunderstanding. 3) Social Impact Assessment (SIA) is proper for activity-based.

Aside from the process (frequency of updates), means (in a report or within an annual report that is public) and mode (document, infographic etc); the following are critical 1. What problem / SDG does your work fit into? 2. What metric have you decided to track (& if it is the first few time, include why) 3. What external dependencies you have and how you address them 4. Benchmark to industry & peers and why you want to exceed them OR your true north star. The four in combination will show you've thought things through OR help your funders and board help you sharpen up (which is what they are there for!)

Use of consistent tools and communication methods is key here. Use of core action research outputs and outcomes - measuring both numbers and narrative - is a start. But more advance methodologies such as theory of change, social return on investment and social accounting can work well here - dependent on your sector and audience.