There are many options to choose from when it comes to picking tools to handle impact strategy,
data collection, data analysis and impact. While these tools offer some distinct advantages to
smaller scale organizations, this doesn't necessarily scale well when data is being
collected from many different sources for multiple programs. Most organizations find a need to create
a common data warehouse to store all of their information so that data Learning and reporting
can happen seamlessly and continuously. Hey everyone, my name is Chris Gaines, lead trainer
at SoPact. Today we're diving into different tools that organisations use for measuring
and managing social impact and situations in which your most common approaches may not end
up being very effective when establishing your impact management process. Well many nonprofits
and social enterprises collect data, most organizations trip up when it comes to deriving
insights from the data that is collected and this gets worse when data is collected on a continuous
basis and there's no well-established process to turn the data from raw data to insightful
information. Also when pricing out a solution, it is important to think about the different factors
that affect cost including the cost of the tool itself, the cost to train people to use said tool,
hiring people with special skills on specific products you may be using, the time it takes
to set up the entire process to work within your organisation's workflow for continuous learning
and improvement and the customisation that might be required to tailor it to your specific
needs. Perfect tool selection integrates with a well-designed data strategy and it can be very
effective in improving accountability of your data and your insights. This makes continuous
learning easier and drastically simplifies the process of reporting direct impact specific to
each funder that you engage with. In our last video we covered some of the best practices
and tips for simplifying data aggregation from different sources and building funder specific
impact reports. You can find a link to that video in the description below.So the next step is going
to be to look a little closer at the role the tools play within your workflow and before we
get started don't forget to smash that like button and subscribe to the SoPact channel so
you don't miss any of the upcoming videos we have for you. Without further ado, let's dive into some
of the tools and practices by many organizations, some ways to avoid common pitfalls and methods to
radically improve continuous learning processes. First on our list, using different tools from
monitoring and evaluation. Managing end-to-end monitoring and evaluation or social impact
measurement requires four main steps. Number one is impact strategy, creating a theory of change or
logical framework. The second is data collection. Third, we have data analysis and finally we have
impact reporting. Organizations commonly use different tools for monitoring and evaluation
or impact measurement. While using different tools can be effective in smaller scale operations when
an organization is running multiple projects in multiple locations, juggling these different tools
such as online and offline data collection, excel for aggregation and tableau for reporting can be
extremely challenging when working to establish a robust learning and improvement process. In most
cases, these tools are way more sophisticated than one may need resulting in an unnecessary
complexity and learning curves when applying them to your specific use case. Next topic:
Impact strategy. Often most organizations work with impact practitioners to define their theory
of change or logic model. The theory of change or logical frameworks are not just diagrams that can
be agreed upon but they have to be living and breathing processes through which the
impact management lifecycle from strategy, data collection, data analysis and reporting can all
be worked between. This is a process that they use for continuous learning and improvement.
Having identified measurable impact metrics is critical. Organizations can start with activities
in output but they must have a clear goal on how they will align them to measure their core
outcome. These metrics are the combinaton of a well defined strategy that first identifies who,
the kind of community or the stakeholder the organization is reaching out to, what,
the impact or outcome they will focus on and how, the depth and scale of impact as well as
the contribution of organizations in the impact risk if intervention is not carried forward.
Identifying measureable impact metrics is just one of the steps. Organizations especially with higher
scales of operation need to develop a systematic process to make the strategy actionable through
systematic data collection and impact data analytics. Next up, mobile data collection.
This may sound obvious but organizations that serve people in parts of the world with choppy
internet connection need to use mobile offline data collection tools. It is surprising to see
well-established organizations using paper-based data collection practices that result in a massive
waste of time and resources. This can be solved very easily using tools such as Kobo toolbox.
Offline mobile data collection reduces data entry pain and improves accuracy. However organizations
should have well-established processes that allow them to learn from their collected data. Without
this monitoring and evaluation staff goes through the painstakingly complex data aggregation process
for different programs, locations and sources limiting their ability to learn and improve the
program for their stakeholders. Processes that involve a lot of different tools and that involve
a significant amount of manual processing of data is erroneous, time consuming and inefficient. This
is where an easy-to-use configuration driven platform can make a big difference in improving
the data governance of the entire organisation. Lastly let's talk about data analytics and
visualizations. A large number of organizations use bespoke visualization applications to learn
from their collected data. These tools are great at what they do. However, to effectively establish
impact measurement and management practices, one needs a tightly integrated analytics operation
that can derive insights from the collected data. This ensures that the data flow is
seamless from stakeholders to the visualizations that make its way into a dashboard or a report.
This improves operational efficiency and helps the organization to focus on what they need to
focus on serving their stakeholders and that's all for today. Here at SoPact, we understand the
organisation's just like yours face challenges with impact management on a daily basis so
we've developed a platform that streamlines the process of the impact management. Impact Cloud
is a comprehensive solution that eliminates the need to integrate many tools from impact strategy,
data collection program, data management, data analysis, dashboarding, reporting and more. With
this approach, you'll save months worth of reporting time, focus on high quality data
collection over number crunching and align your reporting to each funders metrics and reporting
frequency. So if you're ready to learn more and give it a spin as always, head to sopact.com to
start your journey with impact club. With that I hope you learn something new and I'm curious
to hear what challenges you and your organisation are currently facing when it comes to data. Drop
a comment down below and let's get a discussion started and don't forget to download your FREE
copy of our monitoring and evaluation ebook to get more information on the subject. All links
are in the description below. Lastly, don't forget to Like and subscribe to the SoPact channel so
you never miss an upload and until then this has been Chris Gaines. I'll see you in the next one.