Tris Lumley, New Philanthropy Capital www.charitycomms.org.uk/events

1. Measuring and Communicating
Your Impact Conference
29 June 2011
CharityComms is the professional membership body for charity communicators. We believe charity communications
are integral to each charity’s work for a better world.
W: www.charitycomms.org.uk T: 020 7426 8877 1

2. Charity Comms
Measuring and communicating your
impact
How are we doing?
Tris Lumley
Head of Development, NPC

3. What does impact reporting mean to
you?
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4. What does impact reporting mean to
you?
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5. What does impact reporting mean to
you?
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6. Today is about helping you to drive
change
• Why does impact reporting matter?
• What does good impact reporting look like?
• How are charities doing today?
• Who is impact reporting for?
• What do people want from charities’ reporting?
• More importantly, what do they need?
• How can we get there from here?
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7. Why does impact reporting matter?
• The new funding landscape
Donors and funders want to know about impact
• Public trust & accountability
Beneficiaries & public need to know about impact
• Managing for greatest impact
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8. NPC’s research: Talking about results
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9. Five key questions to communicate
impact
• What is the problem we are trying to address?
• What do we do to address it?
• What are we achieving?
• How do we know what we are achieving?
• What are we learning, and how can we improve?
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10. 100%
How well are charities doing?
90%
80%
70%
Average category score
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Vision & strategy Overview & Outputs Problem & need Performance Outcomes
activities
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11. Common weaknesses
• What’s the problem you’re trying to
address?
• Not saying how big the problem is
• Not saying how much of it you’re addressing
• What do you do to address it?
• Talking about # ‘reached’ without any detail
• Not breaking down activities and spending
• Not showing how activities are coherent together
• Not showing how activities contribute to mission
• Focusing on internal activities
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12. Common weaknesses
• What are you achieving?
• Not talking about outcomes at all
• Only talking about outputs
• Not connecting outputs to outcomes
• Focusing on internal / non-mission achievements
• Expecting a case study to communicate outcomes
comprehensively
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13. Common weaknesses
• How do you know what you are
achieving?
• Not providing any evidence at all
• Only providing evidence haphazardly
• Relying solely on case studies
• Not providing high quality evidence
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14. Common weaknesses
• What are you learning, and how can
you improve?
• Not providing any concrete objectives
• Not acknowledging challenges or failure
• Focusing on internal performance
• Not relating performance to ultimate goals
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15. But there’s hope…
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16. WRVS
• Outcomes
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17. Children with
Leukaemia
• Evidence
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18. Marie Curie
• Performance
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19. That’s all very well, but…
• Who really cares about impact reporting?
• What do they really want to know?
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20. Who are impact reports for?
Funders • Commissioners
• Trusts & foundations
• Major donors
Organisation Stakeholders
• Trustees • Beneficiaries
• Management team • Volunteers
• Staff • Media etc.
• Regulators
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21. What do audiences want and need?
• WANT to know how you measure
e.g. trusts & outcomes
foundations • NEED to know what your outcomes
are;
how they compare to others
e.g. board e.g. media
• WANT to know about • WANT to know % admin cost
finances • NEED to know your objectives,
• NEED to know about achievements & failures
results—achievements against
objectives, progress against
mission
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22. What do the public want to know?
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23. If we focused on what people want…
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24. …focus on admin costs
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25. …only tell (good news) stories
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26. …not worry too much about the
numbers or the evidence
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27. …show funders complicated
frameworks
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28. …tell every donor exactly what their
donation achieved
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29. How can we discover more about what
stakeholders really need?
• What do individual donors want/need?
• What do trusts & foundations want/need?
• What do public sector funders want/need?
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30. What do individual donors want/need?
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31. How can you understand and build on
donor motivations?
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32. Institutional funders
• Outcomes in funding applications, outcomes-
based commissioning, payment by results
• Some (too few) offer support for grantees to
improve outcomes measurement
BUT…
• Unclear how this information is used
• Funders rarely outcomes experts themselves
• Unclear how charities supposed to make
transition to outcomes-based funding
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33. How can we get there from here?
• Communications & fundraising need a bigger role
in reporting
• It shouldn’t be a transactional role
• Try to start a dialogue with your funders
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34. We need to use reporting to educate…
• Grant funders about better reporting
• Donors about sensible questions
• Public funders about inputs vs outcomes
• Our boards about outcomes-based vs financial
decision-making
• Peer organisations about our role
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35. Is there hope for reporting?
“I show new funders the stuff they ask for—the really boring
data. Then I say look at this really cool stuff, this is what we
like to measure and report on.
Look at what this tells us—these are the questions you’re
really interested in, right?”
- Isaac Castillo, Director of Evaluation & Learning, Latin
American Youth Centre
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36. Introduction & context
Can we harmonise reporting?
Funders • Commissioners
• Trusts & foundations
• Major donors
Organisation Stakeholders
• Trustees • Beneficiaries
• Management team • Volunteers
• Staff • Media etc.
• Regulators
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37. Introduction & context
What might we be aiming for?
Funders • Reporting based on what organisation needs
• Charge funders for additional reporting cost
• Funding decisions can be made using
comparable
reported outcomes
Organisation Stakeholders
• Standard impact data • Transparent reporting of
in management info challenges and successes
• Regular impact review • Openness about
at board level methodology and evidence
• Impact reporting filters • Presumption of publishing all
down to staff objectives evaluations
& appraisals
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38. How can you make progress?
• Review your reporting today
• Take a comms-led approach to improving it
• Talk to your audiences about wants/needs
• Test and learn
• Donor segmentation based on behaviours
• Start conversations with grant funders about
reporting
• Talk to similar charities about impact reporting
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39. What help do you need?
Board commitment & priority
Leadership commitment to right culture
? Sector commitment to donor education
? Professional development on donor education
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40. www.philanthropycapital.org
Tris Lumley
Head of Development
tlumley@philanthropycapital.org
Tel: 020 7620 4883
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