The Difficulty of Recording Impact Accurately

Whether as a fundraiser, project coordinator or director, if you work for a charity a big part of your role is about being accountable. And this accountability ultimately comes down to one thing: impact. Now, of course, different charities will report on different aspects of impact, but fundamentally the challenge remains the same. How do you capture your impact, and why is it important?

What do we mean by impact?

As mentioned before, every charity will have different criteria by which they measure their impact. What number of organisations have you worked in partnership with? How many people have you trained or supported? How many capital projects have been delivered? How many vulnerable people will benefit? And arguably more importantly, how has it benefitted them? What changes have we seen?

This brings us to the two different types of impact: qualitative (outcomes) and quantitative (outputs). The latter deals with facts and statistics. How many people did you reach? How many resources did you provide? The former, more anecdotal approach refers to all the benefits, positives, changes and impact that are a bit harder to put a number on. It could be a quote from a beneficiary, a photo, video or case study capturing the positive effect of a project for one person in particular.

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Source: Charity Today