Unity Impact Toolkit: How to start measuring impact

This is the second module of the Unity Impact Toolkit

The 'how to start measuring impact' follows from the 'Theory of Change' module where you can learn about how the Unity 'Impact Model' was developed with the support of New Philanthropy Capital.

This module includes insights from innovative social enterprises Think For The Future and Grace Enterprises telling you their ways of measuring impact.

This tool provides a series of questions to 'get you started' on your impact measurement journey. If you haven't yet watched the short video, please do so here:

Impact Toolkit - Unity Trust Bank

If you want to consider the best way to take your first steps in impact measurement, click the 'next' button:

Does your organisation or project have a clear understanding of how your actions will lead to a change for people and planet?

Select from the following options:

Yes - our organisation has a 'Theory of Change' or 'Results Chain' that explains how our actions lead to impact Yes but it could be clearer - our organisation has a general understanding of how our actions create impact but it's not written down in a specific placeNo - our organisation hasn't yet considered how our actions deliver change.

Start with setting your Impact Model

If you haven't yet set out how your actions deliver change, it is recommended you start with the Theory of Change module.

Impact Toolkit - Unity Trust Bank

theory of change template from Unity Impact Toolkit module

If you would like to continue to the next section, you can do below:

So you have an idea of how your actions deliver change... what should you start measuring. Select each of the measures below that you do and the bottom of the page will create a list of recommended measures to start using for tracking your impact:

notice explaining the impact measures being illustrative to support users

For your inputs and enablers

Activity Measure: No of jobs for people with barriers to employment

Drawn from: HR records including onboarding information

Activity Measure: No of training sessions provided

Drawn from: Project records of individual sessions provided

Activity Measure: Hours of training provided

Drawn from: Number of training sessions * average length of training session

Activity Measure: Number of homes provided

Drawn from: Stock records of number of homes provided by the organisation

Activity Measure: Number of community spaces provided

Drawn from: Stock records of number of community assets provided

Activity Measure: Number of community spaces supported

Drawn from: Activity records of the number of community assets supported by the organisation (through finance, skills and volunteering)

Activity Measure: Number of community sessions run

Drawn from: Project records of individual sessions provided

Activity Measure: Number of service provisions (e.g. care)

Drawn from: Number of visits or sessions or online sessions provided for others to join

Activity Measure: Hours of volunteering in the community provided

Drawn from: Staff records of volunteering hours or days on charitable and community projects

Activity Measure: Acres or hectares under management

Drawn from: OS Maps or similar providers if a registered site. May require 'walk around' or GIS mapping for more complex land management activities

Activity Measure: Trees planted

Drawn from: Should include at least trees purchased from seed or seedling and planted (for example, 500 seedlings purchased for inputs and 400 seedlings planted). Should be twinned with acres or hectares under management to provide seedling / acre or hectare

Activity Measure: Kg or tonnes of diverse biomass

Drawn from: Can be grams / metres or Kg per hectare / acre of biodiverse flora planted in an area. Should link up with area under management indicator.

Activity Measure: Total funding

Drawn from: Total quantum (£amount) of funding or investment to social, economic or community development organisations

Activity Measure: Total units of product sold

Drawn from: Total count of something sold that enables social or environmental good.

Activity Measure: Number of properties receiving retrofit or energy efficiency measures

Drawn from: Number of seperate properties with seperate gas and electricity provision receiving retrofits or energy efficiency measures to reduce carbon footprint

Activity Measure: Total hours of technical assistance to other organisations

Drawn from: Either project documentation of workshops or 121 services showing total amount of time providing training to organisations

Short term outcome: Number of people accessing training

Drawn from: Training records for workshops or trainer logs for 121 meetings. Should consider 'double counting' risk and be explicit if it's individuals or training attendances.

Short term outcome: Number of people completing training programme

Drawn from: Tracking of training records including potential 'completion' record through accreditation.

Short term outcome: Number of people volunteering

Drawn from: A centralised volunteering record (e.g. sign in sheet) or decentralised data collection (e.g. individuals 'logging' their hours)

Short term outcome: Number of people barriers to employment starting a quality job

Drawn from: Requires an initial reason for barrier to work. Starting quality job should consider salary, adjustment, hours, skills, suitability and wellbeing of the person.

Short term outcome: Number of people or families in housing

Drawn from: Either through being the housing provider and having tenancy or resident records. If advisory or placement support service, requires confirmation from the 'housed' and/or the provider.

Short term outcome: Number of people accessing community services

Drawn from: Can be challenging to track 'individual' users so decide between attendances vs individuals. Recommend either a sign in option or take 'sample' on certain days to set an average (e.g. average users per day X open days)

Short term outcome: Number of people attending community engagement sessions

Drawn from: Requires attendance logs of community engagement sessions and should be explicit for individual attendees vs repeat attendees.

Short term outcome: Number of people accessing service

Drawn from: Could be a variety of services (care for the elderly, sports sessions, art sessions etc.) but should consider individual users vs repeat attendees

Short term outcome: Number of organisations accessing technical assistance

Drawn from: Count the individual organisations accessing different forms of support from workshops, webinars, 121 training, mentoring, coaching or accessing training materials.

Short term outcome: Number of trees / hectare or acre successfully planted

Drawn from: Requires a 'survival rate' calculation often after one growing season to assess (trees showing healthy growth after one season / total trees planted) and for this to be divided over appropriate area of acre or hectare

Short term outcome: Change in Kg / acre biomass against baseline

Drawn from: Likely requires ecologist expertise to conduct and will require field research or GIS imagery to assess change.

Short term outcome: Number of organisations accessing finance and total finance provided

Drawn from: Sum of total funding provided (as equity, lending or grants or blends) and total count of individual organisations accessing the finance

Short term outcome: User feedback on quality of product or service

Drawn from: Learn from the '60 Decibel' or 'Lean Data' approach to impact management. Take direct Net Promoter Score measures and similar service quality measures to assess whether users recommend the service or product. Must be collected directly from customer or user.

Short term outcome: Tonnes of carbon avoided from retrofit activities

Drawn from: Baseline of carbon emissions required before retrofit. Likely taken from energy bills and energy usage rates over a fixed period. GHG savings assessed by then measuring energy usage over similar period. Can be converted from KwH usage in energy bills or fuel consumption into GHG emissions using the UK Government's conversion factors:

Government conversion factors for company reporting of greenhouse gas emissions - GOV.UK

Long term outcome: Number of people sustaining quality employment for at least 6 months

Drawn from: If employment is provided by the organisation, this should be drawn from HR records. If the organisation has supported the person into another job then need to either (i) follow up with the person who is placed to ask about work progress and/or (ii) have an agreement with the emloyer and employee for reporting.

Long term outcome: Improvements in knowledge, attitudes or practices (KAP) as a result of training

Drawn from: Will likely require a 'baseline' and 'endline' questionnaire or survey to assess the knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAPs) at the start and end of the training or activity. This could be taken from standardised testing (such as in schools, qualification or programmes with a set external standard). Alternatively, the organisation can self-develop KAP questions based on the intended outcome.

Long term outcome: Improvement in wellbeing and/or confidence as a result of action

Drawn from: Will likely require a 'baseline' and 'endline' questionnaire or survey to assess the 'changes' in wellbeing or confidence levels. If using, it is recommended to use an 'established' wellbeing measure standard such as the Short Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Survey (SWEMWBS), ONS 4 Wellbeing questions or the social trust question.

Alternatively, wellbeing and confidence improvements could be inferred from changing behaviours if assessed against a reasonable proxy. For example, if a person changes from negative habits to positive habits aligned to good health, then tracking changes in behaviour may be used.

Long term outcome: Improvements in 'Trust' and community cohesion as a result of action

Drawn from: Will likely require a 'baseline' and 'endline' questionnaire or survey to assess the 'changes' in trust levels in a community. Recommend to draw from the ONS Wellbeing 4 questions and the established social trust question.

Alternatively, trust can be measured by changes in activity levels and behaviours. Seeing increased use of community assets and community connections may be a proxy for trust.

Long term outcome: Individuals and/or families in sustained quality housing

Drawn from: Requires a person to be in stable accommodation for at least one year before understood to be sustained (this can often be expected to be at least 3 years and should be considered within the stresses and costs of moving house). Quality should be determined by combination of housing energy efficiency, access to green space and/or outdoor space, cleanliness of communal areas, safety and other measures important to resident. If the resident has been 'placed' (e.g. the intervention is not the housing provider), will require follow up data from housing provider and/or the resident.

Long term outcome: Increase in £savings or £revenue from investment in community spaces

Drawn from: Likely requires the community space to have quality book keeping and financial management in place and should be assessed against a forecast made in a business plan. For example, the investment may focus on reducing operational costs through energy efficiency or may be to attract new users. The 'change' therefore should be based forecast without investment - forecast with investment = £saving or £increase amount

Long term outcome: Improved health outcomes as a result of action

Drawn from: This outcome should be for improved physical health outcomes compared to the wellbeing and confidence outcomes. Improved health outcomes can either be assessed through baseline to endline changes in key physical health measures or make assessments of the physical activity of users. For example, the General Practice Physical Activity Questionnaire (GPPA) may be used to assess physical activities -

General Practice Physical Activity Questionnaire

Long term outcome: Total carbon dioxide equivalent (GHG emissions) sequestration achieved

Drawn from: This requires a clear understanding of the carbon absorption, storage and release cycle of the activity. It will likely be best to use a proxy from scientific research to assess the sequestration rate. For example, the UK

The Farm Carbon Calculator provides guidance for sequestration rates from nature-based solutions but requires hectares of land under change and type of change.

Long term outcome: total carbon dioxide equivalent (GHG emissions) avoided

Drawn from: The carbon avoided should be considered based on the KwH difference over a similar period before and after retrofits are completed. For example, comparing winter months to winter months rather than comparing winter to spring. Once KwH change is assessed, using the UK government's conversion tables is the best approach for estimating carbon avoidance - Government conversion factors for company reporting of greenhouse gas emissions - GOV.UK

If not able to directly measure a change in KwH before and after, there are a range of tools and providers to help you estimate carbon savings.

Additionally, an EPC taken before retrofits and after retrofits will provide an estimation of building energy efficiency.

Long term outcome: Biodiversity net gain achieved

Drawn from: Likely to require an ecologist or evaluation team to conduct.

Long term outcome: Improved organisational outcomes achieved through funding or technical assistance

Drawn from: Can be taken from direct measurement of an organisations capabilities before or after support or from key financial or operational measures showing the efficiency and resilience of an organisation.

Direct monitoring questionnaires are highlighted in Big Issue Invest research -

BTCI_Literature-Review_2021.pdf, Better Society Capital's 'Enterprise Level Impact' measures explored key financial measures for improved organisational capacity - Understanding enterprise-level impact: Resilience and impact growth | Better Society Capital

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