How do you measure and assess the unintended and long-term effects of your interventions?

1 Why it matters

Unintended effects are the outcomes or impacts that are not expected or planned by the intervention, but are nevertheless caused or influenced by it. They can be positive or negative, intended or unintended beneficiaries, direct or indirect, short-term or long-term. Long-term effects are the outcomes or impacts that occur after the intervention has ended or beyond its scope or reach. They can be sustained or faded, amplified or diminished, transformed or reversed over time. Both unintended and long-term effects matter because they can reveal the complexity, uncertainty, and dynamism of social systems and problems, and the trade-offs, risks, and opportunities of social change.

2 What to measure

Measuring and assessing the unintended and long-term effects of your interventions requires a clear and comprehensive understanding of your theory of change, your logic model, and your indicators. Your theory of change is the explanation of how and why your intervention will lead to the desired outcomes and impacts. Your logic model is the visual representation of the inputs, activities, outputs, outcomes, and impacts of your intervention. Your indicators are the specific and measurable variables that show the progress and achievement of your outputs, outcomes, and impacts. You need to identify and measure not only the intended effects, but also the potential or actual unintended effects, both positive and negative, and the long-term effects, both sustained and faded.

3 How to measure

Measuring and assessing the unintended and long-term effects of your interventions can be a difficult task, but not an impossible one. Depending on your context, resources, and objectives, there are a variety of methods and tools that you can use. Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) is a systematic and ongoing collection of quantitative and qualitative data sources, methods, and indicators that can help detect the unintended and long-term effects of your intervention. Impact evaluation is an independent assessment of the causal effects of your intervention on the outcomes and impacts of interest. Outcome harvesting is a participatory and flexible method that collects evidence of what has changed as a result of your intervention, allowing you to engage with different stakeholders to identify, document, and validate outcomes. All these methods can help measure and assess the unintended and long-term effects of your intervention.

4 How to use

Measuring and assessing the unintended and long-term effects of your interventions is not enough; you must use the findings and insights to inform your decision-making, learning, and improvement. For instance, you can report and communicate your impact to various audiences, such as funders, beneficiaries, partners, staff, etc., by using different formats such as reports, dashboards, stories, etc. Additionally, the findings and insights can help you demonstrate accountability, transparency, and credibility as a social impact practitioner. Furthermore, you can use the findings to learn from successes and failures, as well as to identify gaps, challenges, and opportunities for improvement. You can also use them to adapt your theory of change or logic model to better respond to changing needs and contexts of beneficiaries and stakeholders. Moreover, if you have evidence of effectiveness, efficiency, relevance, and sustainability of an intervention, you can use the findings to scale or replicate it. Lastly, the findings and insights can be used to share best practices with other social impact practitioners who are working on similar or related issues or goals.

5 How to improve

Measuring and assessing the unintended and long-term effects of your interventions is not a one-time or static process; it is a continuous and dynamic process that requires constant reflection, feedback, and improvement. To improve your measurement and assessment, you can develop a culture of learning within your organization or team by fostering a mindset of curiosity, openness, and innovation. Additionally, you should invest in your skills, knowledge, and resources to build your capacity. Moreover, you can collaborate with others who are working on similar or related issues or goals by joining or creating networks, communities, or coalitions. You can also collaborate with those who have different or complementary expertise or perspectives to enhance the quality, validity, and usefulness of your measurement and assessment.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?