Impact

Your organisation exists to make a difference, whether that’s enriching people’s lives, working for a cause or creating a better world. The difference you make is often called your impact.

This section:

• Explores what impact means.
• Introduces a range of things you can do with impact.
• Outlines how the idea of impact leadership can help ensure your organisation’s future success.

Why focus on impact?

'We've become known as an organisation that is effective and delivers on our promises.'
Anne, Get Hooked on Fishing

The most important task of any charity, community group or social enterprise is to achieve its mission. Focusing on your impact will help your organisation to be as successful as possible in reaching that goal.

Everyone in the organisation has a role to play. This involves setting and renewing your purpose, delivering and improving services based on what is most effective, and communicating your success to attract more support and motivate your team members in their day-to-day work.

Measurement anxiety

Unfortunately, when people talk about impact, they often focus only on measuring it. This can be distracting or can put people off the topic of impact altogether. This can be disastrous for an organisation. Whilst assessing impact is certainly important, it is just one of six impact activities you need to do, to achieve the most for your beneficiaries or cause.

Find out more about impact.