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Think about impact

Now you have the main building blocks of your narrative, it might be a good opportunity to reflect with your ‘impact hat’ on. Now that you have your data, ask yourself:

• Did the impact assessment reveal that your assumptions were confirmed?

• Were there any unexpected results?

• Did the assessment reveal your activities caused a change in areas you did not expect?

• Did you expect to create change in some areas but didn’t find any evidence that this happened?

• Did you find any negative results? 

Tools from Phase one can help you think about what you include in your narrative. Do you reflect on the social, economic, organisational or innovative value of your activity? Do you think about your legacy or activity? Do you think about the change you find in your data in the short-term and long-term and what connections can you make to the impact you want to make in the world? 

Review your change pathway

• What was the bigger change that you wanted or needed to see? 

• What was the problem you were trying to solve with your activities?

• Where did you put your accountability line and does that still make sense?

Review the value lenses for inspiration

Each lens enables us to zoom in on the perceived value of what you measured, now from a specific perspective, without being distracted by the bigger picture.

Think about the strategic perspectives

Which strategic perspective and area of impact was most important for your project? Were you most interested in the social aspects of your activities? Or did you look at what you contributed to the economy? Or was it a mix? In most cases, you won’t see ‘impact’ in practice, but you will see indications of change - the short, medium and even longer-term outcomes you identify in your change pathway.

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How do you manage the good with the bad and tell a balanced story?

In some cases, you might have found some data that you don’t like or that don’t make your activities look as good as you want them to be. In some resources, you might find tips to build a narrative or a story that excludes these ‘bad’ bits. We recommend that you see these as a plot twist or a moment in the story. 

Less positive findings are important in your impact story for many reasons. Providing only the ‘good bits’ of an impact story may make it sound less believable. It’s neither good practice nor ethical to pick and choose your data according to what makes your narrative sound good. Finally, it’s important to share your data so it’s there for you and others to learn from. Can you present the ‘bad’ data but also share what you have learned and how you will improve in future? This is already a very strong message that you are sending to your audience. 

Create a narrative arc

We’ve developed a worksheet for you to

Download the

Next step

• Visualise and present your impact narrative