Measuring together

Charities face many barriers when setting out to measure their impact. Many are keen to show the difference they make to people's lives, but don't know where to start. Difficulties range from the challenge of measuring intangible outcomes, to issues getting access to data, problems with staff and resources, or trouble convincing key people of the importance of measurement.

But a lot of these barriers could be overcome if charities worked together to measure their impact. Many charities are beginning to take impact measurement seriously, but are starting from scratch, using their own new methodologies, which can make it difficult to share and compare methods and results.

NPC's new series of reports, Measuring together, aims to tackle this problem by working with groups of charities confronting different issues within the sector to look at impact measurement across their area of work.

Shared measurement applies to charities that use similar activities to help a particular group of people - for example, using mentoring to help disadvantaged young people.

Click here to download a pdf containing more information about NPC's sector measurement programme.

 

Shared measurement reports

 

Impact measurement in the NEETs sector (2012)
Being NEET early in life can leave scars well into middle age. Charities play a vital role in supporting young people into employment, but can struggle to measure their impact. NPC worked with six charities in this sector to develop a common approach to measurement.

Impact measurement in the youth justice sector (2011)
Youth justice charities are particularly in danger from statutory funding cuts, so proving their worth is more important than ever. This paper aims to help charities overcome barriers to impact reporting by working together to share methods and approaches.

Improving prisoners' family ties: Piloting a shared measurement approach (2011) Demonstrating the positive impact of improving prisoners' family relationships can be difficult. NPC piloted a shared measurement approach with six charities working with prisoners and their families, to help overcome problems with impact measurement.

For further information about current and future shared measurement projects, or if you would like to get involved, please email Tris Lumley.

Read posts on NPC's blog about how shared measurement can overcome barriers to measuring impact, and developing standardised approaches to monitoring and reporting.