Clarity on purpose, who you serve and what you do to create impact

Reflecting on your pathway to impact (often called a theory of change) is the foundation to being more effective. It helps you understand where you can have the most impact and to be able reflect periodically on what is working for whom, when and why. You may want to do this as part of your organisational strategy planning. We help you to map out:

What: Defining the difference you seek to make in the world – the problem (s) that you aim to solve, and how what you do fits into the big picture of the causes of these problems and  how what you do builds on or complements the work of others;

Who: Reflecting on for whom you can have the most impact and the reasons why some target people may not be able to access or use your services.

How: Reflecting on what you do (activities), how these lead to the outcomes you are working towards and the assumptions you are making about what needs to be in place for this to happen. Within this it is also valuable to identify what quality looks like for each product, services or process so that you can monitor this and ensure it is happening

Business model: Clarifying how you can maximise the impact that you have, with the most people, over the longest period of time (depth of outreach, scale, income, sustainability).

Developing a theory of change and measurement system for Acumen’s global leadership development programme

We facilitated a series of workshops and discussions to engage staff from different regional teams to reflect on what is core to the programme and what needed to be flexible to allow for contextual adaptation. This led to the development of a theory of change that set out the specifics for each activity. We then worked with the measurement team to identify ways to strengthen existing data capture systems in order to be able to monitor quality of delivery, outputs and outcomes across the programme. We also supported internal reflection and learning to support the process of making adjustments to the next iteration of the programme.

Supporting the theory of change, measurement system and impact report for UK charity

Forthcoming following launch at AGM, October 2023