Welcome to the latest edition of Charities Network, the newsletter for charity leaders dedicated to helping you grow.

In this issue, we look at impact – measuring and reporting it, exploring best practices in managing impact as well as sharing examples of successful impact reports and how to improve readability and storytelling.

Showcasing impact is not just about securing funding or marketing, though it is an important tool for doing that. It’s also about accountability, aligning brand and purpose, and highlighting the need/next steps to close the gap between the current state and ideal vision of the world where the problem you are tackling no longer exists—the endpoint of your charity’s mission.

What’s in this issue?

Drive improvements by avoiding vanity metrics

Drive improvements by avoiding vanity metrics – Impactasaurus

Measuring social impact is normally undertaken to attract funding, but its biggest benefit is driving positive change within your…

impactasaurus.org

Improving impact management for Middlesbrough and Stockton Mind

Impact Services – MIND — Investing for Good

The Mind is a charity and a network of around 130 local Minds in England and Wales. Investing for Good has been working with Middlesbrough and Stockton Mind (MSM), supporting over 6000 people each year improving their mental health and wellbeing. We supported them in the creation a consistent framework for four projects, that includes defining strategic outcomes, giving recommendations on programme design to enhance long term impact, defining KPIs, reviewing data collection processes and creating questionnaires to collect data.

www.investingforgood.co.uk

Designing your impact report: a few key considerations

Charity impact report inspiration – Charities Network Magazine

Examples of charity impact reports with key considerations.

charities.network

Ways to improve the readability of your writing

Catalyst Resource – Why readability is important for your charity

How to write readable content, so people who use your charity’s services can get what they need from it.

www.thecatalyst.org.uk

Further reading

Resource: Theory of change

Theory of change is a process which helps leaders to think about how they believe the charity’s activities will lead to the outcomes and impacts they want to achieve. NPC have a 10-step guide on theory of change.

Theory of change in ten steps – NPC

Our ten step handbook to creating a theory of change is built on many years of developing them for charities and funders.

www.thinknpc.org

Resource: Impact report examples

In this blog by Richard Berks, a medical research charity content writer, some great examples of reports which take into account some of these considerations are highlighted.

Best impact reports from medical research charities – Richard Berks

richardberks.co.uk