Understanding Impact

Using your theory of change to develop a measurement and evaluation framework. 

This guide is for charitable service providers who seek to evaluate their work or measure their impact. ‘Measuring’ in this instance means using data and evidence, both quantitative and qualitative, to gain useful insights about a charity’s work. At heart, measurement is about understanding whether your project or service has made a difference in people’s lives. If yes, how so? If not, why not?

It begins by outlining how to turn your theory of change into a plan for measurement, the five types of data you will need from service users, and the additional information that will be helpful to you. Finally, it explores how to prioritise what to measure.

This guide is written for smaller charities and charitable services, especially those who are new to this or have limited budgets or capacity for data collection. It focuses less on campaigning activities, systems change, or
shared evaluation approaches, and more on areas relevant to any evaluation of social impact.