Inspiring Impact Scotland:
Pre-launch of the Code of Good
Impact Practice
About Inspiring Impact in Scotland
Inspiring Impact is a UK-wide programme that aims to change the way the UK
voluntary sector thinks about impact. By putting impact at the heart of the nonprofit sector, we aim to ensure every pound spent makes the biggest possible
difference to beneficiaries. Evaluation Support Scotland (ESS) leads Inspiring
Impact in Scotland.
The Code of Good Impact Practice
The Code of Good Impact Practice was produced by NCVO in consultation
with the third sector. The Code provides broad, agreed guidelines for focusing
on impact. It sets out a cycle of impact practice and a series of high level
principles to follow. Each principle includes a brief description of how your
impact practice would look if you were applying the principle, an explanation of
why it is important and some ideas about how to implement it.
The Code was launched for consultation in February 2013 to get feedback from
across the sector to help Inspiring Impact refine and improve it before publishing
a final version. The finalised Code will be officially launched on 17 June 2013 UK
wide.
The Pre-launch in Scotland event
ESS and NPC ran an Inspiring Impact event in Edinburgh to promote Inspiring
Impact generally and provide a preview of the Code, encouraging discussion on
how the principles and guidance will be used in practice. The event was also
aimed at identifying barriers and enablers to implementing the principles.
The event was attended by 36 people (organisers excluded) from the voluntary
sector, public sector and private sector. Tris presented the Inspiring Impact
programme vision and the different work strands. Patty then went to talk about
Inspiring Impact Scotland, The Code of Good Impact Practice and the principles.
Kevin Geddes, from the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland (‘the
ALLIANCE’) spoke next about how the ALLIANCE measure their own impact; how
they support funded projects to do self-evaluation and also how they use impact
learning to share with others and influence policy and practice. Tris closed the
event, encouraging participants to sign up to the Code and explained how
attendees could get involved in the programme in different ways.
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Discussions
After the presentation, we facilitated small group discussion on the Code
principles. Attendees provided the following feedback from group discussion:
1.
What ‘inspire’ you to come to the event?
The participants said:
2.
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“They were excited and puzzled about the word ‘impact’;
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They were keen to see where evaluation is moving to;
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They were aware that measuring impact takes time and patience, and
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That impact measurement is a far-reaching change.
What principles are you best at living up to? What principles do you
find most challenging?
Most felt they were best at:
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Principle 1 - taking responsibility for measuring impact and encouraging
others to do so
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Principle 2 – Focus on purpose
Principle 6 – Be honest and open
Principle 7 – Be willing to change and act on what you find
However, they felt they could get better at:
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Principle 3 – Involve others in your impact practice
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Principle 8 – Actively share your impact plans, methods, findings and
learning
Principle 4 – Apply proportionate and appropriate methods and resources
Principle 5 – Consider the full range of the difference you make: positive
and negative, planned and unplanned
Some ideas people had to enable the principles:
In relation to Principle 1,
o Who takes responsibility? It should come from the top – e.g.
Leaders, including senior management staff and Board.
In relation to Principle 5,
o Identify what outcomes and organisation can measure could help –
focus on what your organisation does well rather than those it does
badly.
o Recognise that some outcomes are met in partnership
o Unplanned outcomes are very important as some have been proven
to create opportunities for organisations.
In relation to Principle 8,
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This is about finding the right ‘time’ to share information. Share
learning throughout the project, not just at the end.
Finding organisations that offer impact (or failure) competitions –
ripple effect: demonstrating how great your organisation is will
make getting funding easier. Could we have a ‘partnership award’?
And more generally break down the following barriers:
Funders, local authorities and government have different
requirements and different drivers to require organisations to measure
impact
Using different language – ‘outcomes’ vs ‘outputs’
Funders not accepting unplanned outcomes in reports creates
tension!
How do you use the principles now? What helps you and hinders you?
Feedback here focussed on practical support to evaluate within their own
organisation and the benefits of peer learning events to enable organisations to
share ideas.
How Inspiring Impact can help
Participants said that it’d be helpful for the Inspiring Impact programme to:
 Put examples of good impact practice on the II website
 Explore how funders/ intermediaries can work with frontline organisations
to measure impact
 Consider that organisations use principles in different ways
 Organise more events with opportunities for people to meet face-to-face
to discuss issues, such as ‘how could we measure impact more
consistently?’
 Share stories and case studies – people like them!
 Encourage enabling organisations to decide how to measure their impact –
they are the experts!
 One organisation is one of many working towards outcomes – encourage
sharing learning about methods, challenges and successes (e.g. Change
Funds)
 Provide more self-evaluation guidance around quality control (vs
independent/ external evaluation) – are we sending contradictory
messages?
 Work with the media to enable organisations be more open about things
that did not work or did not go to plan – culture change! Support
organisations to grow strong to feel able to share negative impact, as well
as positive
 Host ‘evaluation’ and/ or ‘failure’ competitions
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 Provide guidance on standards of evidence
 Promote the investment in value of evaluating a service
 Consider that organisations have different political agendas/
circumstances
 Encourage those who require impact evaluation (e.g. funders, social
investors, government, etc) to do so purposefully (avoid hypocrisy) and
feed it in decision making
 Encourage balance around time spent evaluating and time spent
delivering interventions
 Encourage learning sharing throughout the life of projects – by the time
you finish a project and want to share learning you have moved to the
next thing
 Make it clear we are working on broad entry-level guidance and link to
advanced discussion, for example around impact measurement in
preventative work
“We want to get involved!”
At the end of the event questionnaire we asked attendees whether they would
like to get involved in Inspiring Impact and provided options as to how to get
involved. In summary:

33 people would like to get involved in Inspiring Impact. From these:
 14 people would like to become an Inspiring Impact Champion
 12 people would like to produce a case study and another would
think about it. Potential total: 13 people
 26 people would like to attend future seminars/ events and one
more person would think about it.
 18 people would like to complete surveys
 28 people would like to sign up to the II Newsletter. Two have
already signed up.
“How did we do?”
Most participants told us what they enjoyed the most was:
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Having time to reflect on impact practice (and realising that we are
already doing a lot relating to the principles);
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Sharing experiences/ views;
Meeting new people;
Hearing stories about impact measurement;
Sharing excitement about changes and working towards same goal, and
Learning more about Inspiring Impact and plans in Scotland.
Some specific comments were: “The best thing about today was …
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An opportunity to continue dialogue and networking around good practice
to measuring impact.”
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Sharing of experiences/ views.”
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Shared concerns about drivers for evaluation and complex landscape of
politics and economics.”
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Overview of the work.”
Realising we are already doing a lot relating to the principles.”
Met an old colleague! And found out what is happening in the world of
evaluation. Interesting.”
From those who thought we could have done things better, some participants
said:
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“The event was too short and could have done with more time more
discussion.”
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“Could have provided more detail about the thrusts of the new code and
examples of principles in action.”
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“For more opportunities for participants to move tables.”
“Get a frontline organisation to give experience.”
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