impact

The Known Unknowns and Unknown Unknowns of Measuring Performance and Impact

Bryn Sadownik — Fri, 09 Aug 2013 19:34:42 +0000

"There are known knowns; there are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns; that is to say, there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns - there are things we do not know we don't know."

-Former US of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld

COMMUNITY CAPITAL TOOL: Focusing development on the strengths of a community

Bryn Sadownik — Fri, 09 Aug 2013 19:01:26 +0000

I came across this nifty tool when I attended the 6th ANSER conference in Victoria, June 6, 2013. The Community Capital Tool is a decision support and assessment tool, based on the community capital framework, that is designed to facilitate and ground community discussion about integrated planning and monitoring.

Great tools for planning and demonstrating your value

Bryn Sadownik — Wed, 29 May 2013 17:14:02 +0000

Are you about to engage in strategic or business planning in your organization? Planning offers a great point to think about what has and hasn’t worked in the past, how you create value (for community, within your business and organization), how you can create even more value, and ways to measure your success moving forward. Demonstrating Value can complement planning activities in a number of ways.

Expressing Your Organizational Value: Monetizing Value

Sarah Cruickshank — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 17:06:04 +0000

There are major benefits to expressing the monetary value of your social enterprise activities. This is especially true when communicating with an audience focused on the financial bottom line of an investment. Increased credibility for your enterprise and improved communication with your investors – not to mention the potential to attract new investors – are just a few of these benefits. However, there are also some roadblocks that can happen along the way.

Expressing Your Organizational Value: Quantifying Value

Sarah Cruickshank — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 17:56:19 +0000

Expressing value in numerical terms is a direct and concise way to describe value. Quantitative figures can compliment your description of the value of your enterprise, and are especially useful when communicating with investors or other stakeholders who like to know the facts.

Expressing Your Organizational Value: Describing Value

Sarah Cruickshank — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 20:43:43 +0000

It’s a necessity for organizations to have the know-how to properly articulate organizational value. For your social enterprise, this means showing accountability to investors by demonstrating the value of your work and the resulting impact on the community. Do this properly, and it can lead to a dramatic increase in the level of support for your social enterprise.

NOWBC: Showing Impact with Narrative

Sarah Cruickshank — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 08:00:00 +0000

NOWBC, a co-op formed in 2008, runs an online farmers’ market and delivery depot ‘clubs’ with a focus on seasonal, local, organic foods sourced directly from small farms and processors as well as local independent wholesalers. The dedicated volunteers and staff at NOWBC believe in the importance of knowing your local farmer and preserving sustainable farming knowledge and farmland.

An Alternative Model of Change: The Future Can Be Different and Better

Sarah Cruickshank — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 08:00:00 +0000

Channeling Change: Making Collective Impact Work

Tools for enhancing online storytelling: Making the most of your tale

Sarah Cruickshank — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 08:00:00 +0000

Have you ever found yourself wanting to tell your organization’s story “digitally”, but unsure how or even where to start? In this day of rapid technological changes and advances, we are fortunate to have a variety of useful tools at our fingertips that make online storytelling a simple – and fun – process.

10 Ways to Show Your Impact: Part 2

Sarah Cruickshank — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 08:00:00 +0000

In Part 1 of “10 Ways to Show Your Impact”, we discussed five things you can do to show your value including:

1) be as clear as possible in describing your vision, mission, and strategies,
2) describe what differentiates you,
3) describe and show evidence of the value you create from the perspective of all your stakeholders,
4) tell your story and the stories of those you work with, and

10 Ways to Show Your Impact: Part 1

Sarah Cruickshank — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 08:00:00 +0000

Community-based organizations are in a tough position: they work tirelessly towards goals that will have positive social or environmental impacts and they know they create a lot of value for the communities they serve – but, this value is hard to express and recognition from the community is hard to come by. The value created by community-based groups doesn’t get captured very well by standard financial statements because conventional accounting methods do not consider value beyond the financial returns.

Canadian Index of Wellbeing: Evaluating Quality of Life in Canada

Sarah Cruickshank — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 07:00:00 +0000

Is measuring impact possible?

Sarah Cruickshank — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 18:01:00 +0000

When you hear the word “impact”, what comes to mind? While your first thoughts may include that kickboxing class you just joined, it is it is also true that the term “impact” is often used loosely to encompass any type of reporting about the social or environmental mission of an organization. In the world of evaluation, this word has a much ‘tighter’ meaning: Impact is the tracking of long-term outcomes, controlling for external influences, or using randomized control trials to prove that the outcomes are attributable to a particular organization’s efforts.