On the bright side: Developing a questionnaire for charities to measure children's well-being

Lucy Heady & Ana Oliveira

January 2008, 32 pages

Many charities struggle to measure, and communicate to donors, the total impact that their work has on the lives of the children they work with. Instead, they have to rely on narrow indicators, like improved exam results, to show the difference they make to children’s lives.

If charities could measure improvements in the total well-being of the children they help, their whole impact would become apparent. In turn this would help charities to improve their services, and help donors with funding decisions.

NPC's tools team is developing a questionnaire to help charities measure and demonstrate how their work influences children’s well-being. On the bright side describes the first stages in building and testing the questionnaire. Over 2008 the questionnaire will be developed and further pilots will test how well it works on the ground.

This is the first time an attempt has been made to create a recognisable scale of well-being that can be easily used by the voluntary sector. We want this tool to be as useful as possible, not only in helping charities measure and communicate their results, but also in helping donors understand the impact of a charity’s work when deciding who to fund.

• Click here to read more on NPC's tools team.