What is impact?

The difference you make is often called your impact. You create impact (or outcomes) through your services - your outputs.

Impact: a tricky word

It sounds straight forward, but impact can be tricky to define. It means different things to different people.

Some use the term as a way of summing up all the benefits or changes an organisation brings about for its users or cause. These benefits are also known as outcomes.

Others make a distinction between impact and outcomes. They view immediate benefits as outcomes and the wider, more long-term, cumulative effects of your work as the impact.

Impact can also be understood in an even broader way, as a combination of all the effects an organisation has on everyone and everything involved with or influenced by its work. This includes intended as well as unintended effects, negative as well as positive changes, long-term impact and short-term or interim benefits. This is NCVO’s view of impact: it’s the difference your organisation makes.

Full value

NCVO believes the best way to understand the overall contribution of your organisation is to think about its full value, the broader worth of your work. Find out more about full value.

Don’t worry about words

It’s easy to get caught up in long, complicated conversations about what impact means. It’s important not to worry too much about it. Whatever terms you use, it’s fine, as long as you are confident you and the people you’re talking to mean the same thing.

Impact, outputs and activities

Your impact is certainly different to your outputs (the services or products you deliver) and your activities (the tasks you do to produce your outputs).

An example

The planned impact for the members of a scout troop might include:

being healthier
feeling happier
having new skills
increased sociability and confidence.

The chosen outputs of the scout group might be:

evening meetings with a programme of activities such as computer sessions and group games
weekend events such as canoeing
an annual week-long summer camp involving a range of sessions.

The activities would involve: