Measuring impact

Knowing and showing

Concrete insight into your results: that is our goal. This allows your organisation to know and show your impact. Knowing your impact helps to improve your strategy and increase your impact. For example, research gives an insight into what works (and what doesn’t) and how it works: the mechanisms of change. In depth knowledge of these mechanisms helps you to improve your intervention and maximize your impact. Showing your impact makes your team, funders and others enthusiastic and motivates them to become involved with your mission.

How we make impact visible?

Since 2009 we have specialised in measuring impact. One-off impact studies and baseline, midterm and/or final evaluations are often the starting points for creating insight into your added value. Besides evaluations, we increasingly support organisations in making impact measurement an integral part of their business by designing smart tailor-made planning, monitoring, evaluation and learning (PMEL) systems.

Our measurement principles:

• Right-fit measurements: we are pragmatic researchers. Grounded in practice. Quality, credibility and reliability are crucial and a cornerstone of our work. Your needs, resources and capabilities are our starting point to come to right-fit measurements. This allows us to work both with small organisations, such as social enterprise start-ups, and with large (government funded) programmes.

• Focus on learning: we believe that learning is the basis for improvement. Which is why we make learning part of our monitoring systems and evaluations. If possible we use participatory and people-centred methodologies in which we facilitate the learning process. The result is often the development of innovative learning products.
• Use is key: reports that end up collecting dust in a drawer are our nightmare. So we produce reports that include visuals, are concise and easy to read. Through close collaboration with clients we ensure recommendations are clear and relevant for future steps.

Focus on learning

Using lobby and advocacy to improve the rights of girls and young women: that is the aim of the Girl Advocacy Alliance (Plan Nederland, Defence for Children Nederland-ECPAT and Terre des Hommes). The alliance works in 10 countries in Africa and Asia.

Avance worked on the organisation’s mid-term evaluation. Our focus was to ensure learning throughout the programme and beyond. We used the monitoring system to explore key outcomes. Using desk study, long-distance key informant interviews and focus groups we explored how these outcomes were achieved and what lessons could be distilled from these routes to change. In collaboration with Makmende Media we developed three mini documentaries. We also developed a learning booklet, societies in transition, exploring six key outcomes areas and the lessons learnt from the road to change. Both were presented at a Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.