Developing student volunteering - Impact measurement
Impact Measurement Student Volunteering Week is all about celebrating the incredible impact, created by student volunteers, from across the UK. This resource will help you to understand the importance of impact measurement, equipping you with skills to ensure all your hard work is creating the greatest possible impact for all those involved in your event.
So, what is impact measurement and why is it important?
The term “impact measurement” is one you’ll come across a lot (or at least should come across a lot!) in the charity and volunteering sector. It refers to the process we use to try and find out what effect a project or event is having on an individual, the environment and/or community. This process includes systematically monitoring data and then evaluating this data, to work out how successful an event has been. It is important to remember that impact measurement is all about the things that really matter how much good are we creating through a particular event. It’s not just about metrics like how many people attended. It’s about looking at what positive outcomes happened as a result of what you have organised. Measuring your impact is important for a number of reasons. Firstly, it helps you to prove the social or environmental benefit you are currently having. This is useful to help communicate your project or event to volunteers, beneficiaries, funders and other stakeholders. Secondly, it allows you to plan how to improve your work to create greater impact in the future.
How can you go about measuring a projects impact?
When measuring impact, it is important to look at your inputs, outputs, outcomes and the final impact made. Inputs are the resources you put into the event e.g. money, time, space etc. Outputs are the things that came about as a result of these collective inputs e.g. volunteering project, fundraiser, awareness campaign etc. Outcomes are the results of these outputs e.g. happy young carers after taking part in a project, £500 raised for Cancer Research, 100 signatures on a petition etc. The final impact is the hardest thing to measure. It refers to the more long-term effects of your outputs and outcomes e.g. better relationships between students and the local community, students having a greater understanding of a social issue etc. When collecting data to help you assess your impact, you should think about two different things: 1) Qualitative research – Asking questions like ‘when?’, ‘who?’, ‘where?’, ‘what?’ and ‘why?’ will help you reach an in-depth understanding of what people think about your event. You could collect this information through case studies, focus groups, observations, interviews etc. 2) Quantitative research – As well as people’s opinions, you want to have the facts about the project you’re trying to evaluate. Asking questions like ‘how many?’, ‘how often?’ and ‘how much?’ will help you gather this information. You could also think about running a costbenefit anaylsis, to see how much impact is made for your buck!
How do you know what to measure?
When you’re in the middle of running an event or project, it can be daunting to think about what exactly you should be measuring to help you prove the impact you’re having. To make it easy, we suggest remembering you’re A.I.M.S: A – Action focused: Will knowing about specific thing help your organisation/project become more effective in the future? Knowing whether event attendees liked the cheese sandwiches might be interesting, but won’t necessarily help you make more community impact in the future… I – Important: Is it important to your key stakeholders? Are you being sponsored by a cheese manufacturer who specifically wants to know about attendee appreciation for the sandwiches? M – Measurable: Is what you want to measure actually measureable? S – Simple: Is the data clear enough to be understood? Is it easy enough to get the information? Remember, the more impact measurement conducted, the more credible your results will be!
Things to watch out for… Impact Measurement may not be the sexiest job, but it is so important to the future effectiveness of your work. Below we’ve listed some of the most common mistakes made when measuring a project’s overall impact: Too much focus on measuring metrics and not enough at looking at the real value created. You measured that 500 people came to an event – great! But that’s not much good if all 500 were asleep due to boredom! Spend time measuring what really matters. Not measuring the real outcomes of a project as they are harder to measure – it’s easy to count how many people attended an event; less easy to assess whether them attending has caused them to think differently about an issue. However, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try! Too focused on funding requirements and ‘rubber stamping’ your project – gaining support is important, but social impact is more so. Too much thinking, not enough action – don’t spend all your time doing impact measurement and never put the things you have learnt into practice! Don’t forget to think about achieving impact, not just achieving self-imposed targets – you may plan to recruit 100 volunteers, and if you reach that target it will be a good achievement. However, you also need to know whether those 100 volunteers have helped you to have a bigger impact on the community, or not. Don’t get bogged down trying to achieve your own goals if these aren’t going to help you make a greater impact in the long run!
How can you use your findings in the future?
Put you findings into a nice-looking document and send it round to all your stakeholders, letting them know how they might support your activity further in the future. You never know what incredible things might come from it! Sit down with your team and go through what you’ve found. Think about how you are going to improve your project or event next time to create even greater impact. Write up all your thoughts and come back to it next time you’re starting to organise the event or project. Share your findings with people doing similar things, so everyone can benefit from what you’re learnt and more impact can be created overall.
So, what is impact measurement and why is it important?
The term “impact measurement” is one you’ll come across a lot (or at least should come across a lot!) in the charity and volunteering sector. It refers to the process we use to try and find out what effect a project or event is having on an individual, the environment and/or community. This process includes systematically monitoring data and then evaluating this data, to work out how successful an event has been. It is important to remember that impact measurement is all about the things that really matter how much good are we creating through a particular event. It’s not just about metrics like how many people attended. It’s about looking at what positive outcomes happened as a result of what you have organised. Measuring your impact is important for a number of reasons. Firstly, it helps you to prove the social or environmental benefit you are currently having. This is useful to help communicate your project or event to volunteers, beneficiaries, funders and other stakeholders. Secondly, it allows you to plan how to improve your work to create greater impact in the future.
How can you go about measuring a projects impact?
When measuring impact, it is important to look at your inputs, outputs, outcomes and the final impact made. Inputs are the resources you put into the event e.g. money, time, space etc. Outputs are the things that came about as a result of these collective inputs e.g. volunteering project, fundraiser, awareness campaign etc. Outcomes are the results of these outputs e.g. happy young carers after taking part in a project, £500 raised for Cancer Research, 100 signatures on a petition etc. The final impact is the hardest thing to measure. It refers to the more long-term effects of your outputs and outcomes e.g. better relationships between students and the local community, students having a greater understanding of a social issue etc. When collecting data to help you assess your impact, you should think about two different things: 1) Qualitative research – Asking questions like ‘when?’, ‘who?’, ‘where?’, ‘what?’ and ‘why?’ will help you reach an in-depth understanding of what people think about your event. You could collect this information through case studies, focus groups, observations, interviews etc. 2) Quantitative research – As well as people’s opinions, you want to have the facts about the project you’re trying to evaluate. Asking questions like ‘how many?’, ‘how often?’ and ‘how much?’ will help you gather this information. You could also think about running a costbenefit anaylsis, to see how much impact is made for your buck!
How do you know what to measure?
When you’re in the middle of running an event or project, it can be daunting to think about what exactly you should be measuring to help you prove the impact you’re having. To make it easy, we suggest remembering you’re A.I.M.S: A – Action focused: Will knowing about specific thing help your organisation/project become more effective in the future? Knowing whether event attendees liked the cheese sandwiches might be interesting, but won’t necessarily help you make more community impact in the future… I – Important: Is it important to your key stakeholders? Are you being sponsored by a cheese manufacturer who specifically wants to know about attendee appreciation for the sandwiches? M – Measurable: Is what you want to measure actually measureable? S – Simple: Is the data clear enough to be understood? Is it easy enough to get the information? Remember, the more impact measurement conducted, the more credible your results will be!
Things to watch out for… Impact Measurement may not be the sexiest job, but it is so important to the future effectiveness of your work. Below we’ve listed some of the most common mistakes made when measuring a project’s overall impact: Too much focus on measuring metrics and not enough at looking at the real value created. You measured that 500 people came to an event – great! But that’s not much good if all 500 were asleep due to boredom! Spend time measuring what really matters. Not measuring the real outcomes of a project as they are harder to measure – it’s easy to count how many people attended an event; less easy to assess whether them attending has caused them to think differently about an issue. However, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try! Too focused on funding requirements and ‘rubber stamping’ your project – gaining support is important, but social impact is more so. Too much thinking, not enough action – don’t spend all your time doing impact measurement and never put the things you have learnt into practice! Don’t forget to think about achieving impact, not just achieving self-imposed targets – you may plan to recruit 100 volunteers, and if you reach that target it will be a good achievement. However, you also need to know whether those 100 volunteers have helped you to have a bigger impact on the community, or not. Don’t get bogged down trying to achieve your own goals if these aren’t going to help you make a greater impact in the long run!
How can you use your findings in the future?
Put you findings into a nice-looking document and send it round to all your stakeholders, letting them know how they might support your activity further in the future. You never know what incredible things might come from it! Sit down with your team and go through what you’ve found. Think about how you are going to improve your project or event next time to create even greater impact. Write up all your thoughts and come back to it next time you’re starting to organise the event or project. Share your findings with people doing similar things, so everyone can benefit from what you’re learnt and more impact can be created overall.
