Building a whole-organisation impact model with CECF
CECF's services were funded in a complex mix of ways. I worked with the whole team to create one impact model that shows how everything they do fits together.
- Client
- CECF
- Organisation
- Race equality charity, Cambridge
- Service
- Defining your Impact Model
- Timeframe
- One week of workshops
The challenge
CECF is a Cambridge-based race equality charity providing advice and advocacy, community development, and work to improve representation.
A key funding partner wanted to better understand the impact of their funding, and asked me to work with a number of funded organisations, including CECF. Three of CECF’s programmes were funded by this partner, alongside a complex mix of other funding and contracts.
That complexity meant CECF was struggling to show clearly how their services worked together to contribute to shared objectives with the funder.
They had completed a theory of change with a previous consultant, but it hadn’t involved the whole team and hadn’t been translated into monitoring. The funder agreed that I would work with CECF to create a whole-organisation impact model encompassing all of their services.
What we did
After a one-hour online session to set the scene, I worked intensively with CECF over one week, meeting on three consecutive days with most of the staff team attending all three.
Agreeing the language
Early on we identified a lack of clarity around the language used to describe impact, partly because of differing funder terminology. We built a glossary of terms to use throughout, which grounded the model in what mattered to the charity and how they work.
Building blocks
Over two days we worked through audience, activities, approach and outcomes.
We unpicked these for each service, then put them back together from a whole-organisation point of view. The team gained a deeper understanding of each other’s work: where there were similarities, opportunities for closer working, and important distinctions.
Creating the impact model
We then looked at how these building blocks came together to achieve impact. This built on the existing theory of change and introduced Ager and Strang’s (2008) conceptual framework for integration, already used in one service area. It helped articulate the cumulative nature of CECF’s impact within, and across services.
Getting to grips with measures
CECF was collecting many different measures, some set nationally. By grouping outcomes in the theory of change, we rationalised them and reduced the number collected.
We spent a day on this because it mattered so much to the team. We explored the harms outcome data collection can cause, and the practice that supports better engagement. We acknowledged the national datasets that were problematic but that CECF had no choice but to collect, and committed to championing alternative measures.
The difference for CECF
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The impact model was grounded in a deep, collective understanding of what CECF does, with whom, how and why. It strengthened the team’s collective identity and confidence in their work.
It has been used in funding applications and led to a significantly improved success rate.
The team understand each other’s work better and are better able to work together, and the management team identified opportunities to connect services and activities.
Previously, the complexity of impact measurement had made moving to a CRM unfeasible. With clarity on the monitoring framework, CECF was able to implement a CRM that works for all service areas.
What I learned
The CECF team opened my eyes to how wellbeing is a feature of individualistic cultures and doesn’t translate to collective cultures.
I was already committed to data equity, but the team deepened my understanding of how some measures can worsen inequalities by missing the experience of people they don’t apply to. I’m now more inquiring when someone reaches for ‘wellbeing’ as a measure, and ask what they really mean.
“Working with Ali Lyons has been a positive and rewarding experience for our team. Her expertise in helping us articulate our outcomes and then in co-creating an impact model and framework for our charity has been transformational. We now have an effective framework that helps us see how our day to day activities connect to the longer term change we hope to create.”Eddie Stadnick, CEO, CECF