Connecting Organizational Strategy with Impact Measurement
Written by Jessica Gibbons
As part of the strategic planning process, the West End Home Foundation team and board needed clear priorities for their data and evaluation that were directly linked to their core strategies. The Strategic Impact Map was the perfect tool for the job. We facilitated the staff through the process, offering our evaluation expertise and integrating their expertise in the work at each step.
Services
Strategic Planning Process
Strategic Impact Map
Our Approach
The Strategic Impact Map begins by clearly stating the community-level challenge or conditions that the organization is seeking to address through their mission. For WEHF, they are responding to the reality that there is a growing gap between the needs of older adults and the resources available to support aging with dignity. In the strategic plan, they identified three core strategies: Funding, advocacy, and convening. The Impact Map process clarified the priority metrics for each strategy that WEHF needs to track and report on internally to understand their progress, as well as their long-term community impacts that their work contributes to.
Team Elevate then curated a set of relevant, high-quality published studies that demonstrate the linkages between shorter-term outcomes and the long-term impacts WEHF hopes to see. The Impact Map allows nonprofits to focus their limited evaluation resources on measuring and reporting shorter-term changes while utilizing the work of research teams working in their field to prove the longitudinal connection between short-term change and long-term impact. With the Impact Map and its citations in hand, WEHF is able to make a strong case that their short term outcomes do indeed contribute to long term changes for individuals, their funded partners, and the broader community.
““WEHF was a joy to work with, and I am glad that this process allows them to focus on collecting only the data that is actually useful and aligned with their strategies. Clarity brings such relief!” ”