Measuring impact - who counts?
Anyone for a results library?
1 December 2007
Alliance magazine
An evaluation showing the economic impact of older volunteering sits on a shelf gathering dust alongside an annual report aggregating a charity’s impact on the wellbeing of individuals in its local community and a piece of academic research showing the links between child abuse and adult mental health.
The growing movement towards charities measuring their results will fail to realize its potential unless it also builds the infrastructure which allows reliable information about impact to flow and so enables funders, charities and beneficiaries to learn from each other. Two UK organizations, FunderFinder and New Philanthropy Capital (NPC), have come up with ideas for tackling the problem.
