Six things to do with impact

What is impact?

Your organisation exists to make a difference. The difference you make is your impact.

For infrastructure organisations impacts can range from stronger more effective voluntary and community organisations to more facilitative environments for these organisations to work in, and the full range of changes inbetween.

Why focus on impact?

It is important to focus on your impact ultimately to make the biggest difference. This can mean improving services based on what is most effective, communicating success to attract more support and motivating your team in their work.

Unfortunately, when people talk about impact, the focus has often been on measuring it. Some have been put off by this or feel it isn't relevant to their work. Whilst measuring impact is important, we believe that there are other things that you need to do with impact as well to achieve more.

Six things to do with your impact:

1. Think about

Think about the impact that you want to make. Always keep your impact in mind to help you keep focused on what you want to achieve. Remember that everyone in your organisation has a role to play to ensure you achieve the impact you set out to.

2. Plan

Plan how you will bring about the impact you want and how you'll assess it. All evidence collection should be focused; avoid just-in-case data collection. More on planning for impact.

3. Deliver

Deliver your services with an eye on your end goal. Consider the quality of your services and whether your users are satisfied.

4. Assess

Assess how well your services are meeting your planned impacts during delivery as well as at the end. More on measuring impact.

5. Communicate

Communicate your impact to attract more support both internally and externally. Be proud but honest. Explain things that haven't gone so well and stress learning opportunities and changes that you made as a result. More on communicating impact.

6. Improve

Improve your services as a result of your knowledge about what had the biggest impact and satisfied your users. Build on your learning to achieve more. More on improving impact.