Impact management

What is impact management?

In the same way you manage your finances or human resources, you need to manage your impact. Impact management is the complete cycle of PMEL (planning, monitoring, evaluation and learning) which ensures you create the best possible impact. The processes include measurement and strategy development and are shown in our MY-impact model.

Avance is an expert in setting up PMEL systems based on the MY-impact model. Our systems are tailor-made for each context. PMEL systems help to set clear goals, put ideas into action, continuously monitor progress and collect and share lessons for improvement. They also help when it comes to clear communication with stakeholders and when strategic choices are to be made. We can do this for you, but even better: enable you to manage your own impact.

Our PMEL principles

  • Lean and effective: only gather data that you really use so that most of your resources go to the actual beneficiaries
  • Integral system: our starting point are the current methods and procedures used by your organisation so that PMEL systems can easily be implemented into existing work cycles
  • Adaptive management: the perfect system cannot be created in one go. Circumstances, resources and needs change so keeping your system flexible is key
  • Participatory approach: the end-user of the system is you, not us. We use a participatory approach in designing the system so that once we are gone the system is still up and running.

SOS Villages d’Enfants Monde Luxembourg – impact management partner
SOS Children's Villages International

SOS Villages d’Enfants Monde Luxembourg, in partnership with SOS Children’s Villages local associations, is implementing the innovative PACOPE programme in Guinea, Mali, Niger and Senegal from 2017 to 2021. This community-based programme works to ensure the rights of children through both an economic and child protection approach.

Avance has been involved with the programme since its inception and has facilitated the setting up of its PMEL system. As this is a new approach for SOS Children’s Villages, adaptive programming and impact management are key. As well as carrying out all the evaluations during the programme, we contributed to provide national and local teams with the tools and system necessary for a results-based approach. For example:

  • online database which provides teams with easy access to data
  • training sessions on data analysis and interpretation
  • data cleaning and management
  • self-analysing Excel sheets which give teams easy analysis of programme indicators
  • exit criteria scorecard which facilitates the substantiated exit process of beneficiaries

In the years that followed, we jointly with SOS Villages d’Enfants Monde technical support team helped improve the capacities of local teams by providing training on data-analysis. This contributed to improved quality control, analysis and use of data.