Communicating Impact

Hey, are you listening?? I’m trying to communicate my impact with you!

Communicating impact is not as straightforward as it might seem.? Which is why you can be met with silence, in-action and no response.? Read on to find out how by asking some key questions you can get it right.

So often the focus is on external stakeholders – but it’s also vitally important to consider internal stakeholders when communicating impact. And communicating the positive impacts as well as the negative impacts, and what you will do to improve your impact.?

What Needs Communicating

Depending on who you are communicating with, you will need to consider what your answers are to the following questions:

·?????? Why are you measuring your impact?

·?????? What are the benefits of measuring your impact?

·?????? Who is responsible and accountable for measuring impact?

·?????? What are you actually measuring, how and for whom?

·?????? How will the data be used?

·?????? How will you know if you’ve been successful or not?

·?????? How does it affect your continual improvement and the organisation’s future plans?

·?????? How will you share the findings from the data?

·?????? Who will you share the findings with?

These questions are pretty smart questions to ask yourself because you will have already pre-empted certain questions (or objections) that frequently come up when measuring impact is mentioned, such as “Why have we got to collect all this extra data?”, “I don’t have time to do this.” or “I don’t see the point in doing this.”

Answering the questions:

Here’s some specific things to think about for the questions:

·?????? Why are you measuring your impact?

This question is about making sure everyone understands why you’re doing it in the first place.? Your motivations for measuring your impact are usually triggered by a specific event or need.? These could be one of the following (or something else):

·?????? To report back to a funder

·?????? To communicate what you do and your impact

·?????? To make sure you are operating effectively

·?????? To identify where you can make improvements

·?????? To evidence how you comply with the Social Value Act

·?????? To identify the potential savings you make for the public sector

·?????? To monetise your social value and calculate a SROI?figure

By being clear about your motivations for measuring your impact you’ll be able to communicate why you are doing this and increase the likelihood of buy-in from your Board, staff, volunteers, clients and other stakeholders.

·?????? What are the benefits of measuring your impact?

In most cases there are only two primary benefits for measuring impact:

·?????? To increase your organisation’s income

·?????? To increase your organisation’s impact

There may be secondary benefits, such as:

·?????? Having the evidence to win a tender, secure a grant or gain investment

·?????? Providing information to develop new products or services

·?????? Helping to develop a better organisational culture

·?????? Improving your marketing

But, ultimately these all contribute to one of the two primary benefits (increasing income or increasing impact).?

·?????? Who is responsible and accountable for measuring impact?

The key distinction here is that someone will be accountable for making sure impact measurement happens.? It may be you or someone senior within your organisation.? You will then delegate responsibility for certain tasks and activities, that enable the impact measurement to happen on a day-to-day basis.? (If there’s only you in the organisation then you’re both accountable and responsible!)

Communicating whose role it is to do what will save you a lot of pain – particularly if certain things are not happening – because you can easily identify who is supposed to be doing it and rectify the situation.?

·?????? What are you actually measuring, how and for whom?

Effective communication here will mean everyone knows what is being measured (which particular outcomes), how it is being measured (what method is being used to capture the data) and for whom (which stakeholder group are you measuring outcomes for).

This level of clarity needs to be communicated because the typical objections from people for not doing impact measurement are:

·?????? I don’t see why we have changed the survey/form.

·?????? Why are we asking these questions?

By not only communicating what, how and for whom clearly but engaging with your stakeholders in making those decisions, they will be part of the process and it will make communication easier.? Co-design of your impact measurement framework will help to make sure there aren’t any objections.

When collecting data, it's crucial to communicate the following:

·?????? How the data will be used?

This clarity benefits both the data collector and the person, business or organisation you’re collecting data from. From the perspective of the data collector, understanding the purpose behind the data collection is essential. This purpose should tie back to the goals established during the define stage and the advantages of measuring your impact. Knowing what will be done with the data reassures collectors that their efforts are not in vain—that the data will not merely be stored away, forgotten on a computer or in a file box.?

This transparency enables data collectors to confidently explain to data providers:

·?????? How the data will be handled and stored.

·?????? The measures taken to anonymise the data.

·?????? How any necessary actions will be taken in response to the data, such as addressing negative feedback or outcomes.

This clear communication ensures that all parties understand the value and handling of the data, fostering trust and efficiency in the process.

After capturing the data, it's essential to interpret and communicate its implications. At this stage, defining what successful impact looks like is crucial because it allows you to measure your results against your expectations of success. During the analyse stage, communication focuses on examining immediate results and making quick operational decisions based on the data's insights into success. The critical question to address is:

·?????? How will you know if you have been successful or not?

The best way to answer this is to establish specific impact metrics tailored to your organisation. These metrics should be internally defined rather than imposed by external funders or commissioners. You need to decide what success looks like for your organisation and communicate this vision to your stakeholders before seeking their input.

This strategy encourages open dialogue and reduces the likelihood of having to report inconsistently to various funders and commissioners using multiple systems. By leading the discussion on impact, you leverage your understanding of effective data capture to demonstrate whether activities are achieving their intended outcomes.

The metrics can be percentages for positive outcomes (with a minimum level that needs to be achieved), maximum percentages for negative outcomes, levels of drop outs/numbers not completing the programme if appropriate, and any other issues/items that need investigating further.? We’ve developed an online system for capturing and analysing data, that presents key metrics in a dashboard – so you can see instantly what’s working and what’s not with your impact data – get in touch if you’d like more information on this.?

The key findings from the data can then be communicated during team meetings with a view to identifying any issues and making changes quickly to your activities or the processes.? It’s best to make it a standing agenda item so impact is always on the agenda.?

You can communicate what you’ve achieved so far, what you’re doing differently or what you’ve changed to the relevant stakeholders (customers, funders, commissioners etc.) so they can see that you’re being pro-active in managing your impact on an on-going basis.? This leads to regular reviews to see if your results are improving over time.

The Learn stage is centred on communicating the overarching impact of your activities, incorporating insights and linking them to your strategic development. Key questions during this stage include:

·?????? How does it affect continual improvement and the organisation’s future plans?

·?????? How will you share the findings from the data?

·?????? Who will you share the findings with?

Developing a clear plan for sharing impact results with stakeholders is crucial at this stage. This planning process should determine if different stakeholders have varying interests and whether the dissemination of impact data needs to be tailored for each stakeholder group.

Another important aspect of communication in this stage is internal, focusing on how the impact influences your strategic direction and business planning. By positioning impact as a central theme in discussions, it becomes an integral part of organisational communications.

To effectively convey what has been learned, discussions about impact should be a regular feature of Board meetings. These discussions should focus on what the data means for potential new products or services, identify any gaps in delivery that might require additional investments or partnerships, and consider the implications for your organisation's future strategy and financial outlook.

Next month I’ll be sharing more about the various methods you can use to effectively communicate impact internally and externally.

Liked this?? You can find out more in my book Impact First: The social entrepreneur’s guide to measuring, managing and growing your impact – available from most online book stores.

Need help with developing your approach to communicating your impact? Message me now.