Measuring Impact: A guide to resources

It's clear that there is a need for impact analysis in the voluntary and community sector, where there is no luxury such as share price or profit margin by which to judge its success. This guide offers assistance to those interested in impact and how to measure it. There are many interested parties in carrying out an impact analysis, these include government, funders, donors, and all staff which this report discusses.

Impact analysis is rarely a straightforward affair and some of the difficulties are discussed, providing those thinking about impact analysis with considerations before they begin their work.

There are a number of guides available, these are not prescriptive methodologies but are more about approaches that can be adopted. A number of funders have also developed innovative techniques for measuring impact, these include methodologies constructed to fit the nature of the work. Other work has focused on specifically identifying the unique features of the voluntary and community sector.

Also available are a number of toolkits which have been designed to measure regeneration and community development, including the New Economics Foundation , Scottish Community Development Centre and Community Evaluation Northern Ireland (CENI).

Of course there are many problems in existence with these methodologies, but hopefully they will assist those who are designing new methodologies.

This report is available in hard copy and can be obtained from the research team on 028 9087 7777.