Tools & Resources

The Tools and Resources for Impact Measurement and Management section of our website is dedicated to providing a comprehensive suite of resources that can be downloaded and put to practical use by our Impact Community.

The resources are all aligned to our IMM courses, particularly the IMM Builder course, which provides step by step guidance on how they can be developed and adapted to your own context, and put firmly into practice.

The Tools and Resources are categorised and cover the following IMM areas:

• IMM Ethics

• Participatory IMM

• Theory of Change

• Indicators

• Data Collection Methods & Software

• Sampling

• Data Collection Tools

• Analysis

• Fundraising & Communications

• Learning & Improvement

• Indicators

PLEASE NOTE: This section to our website is coming soon.

Theory of Change

Theory of Change is a technique that helps you to map out and explore how your activities lead to social change, and your underlying beliefs or assumptions. It is a powerful tool for helping to:

• Communicate your programmes and their intended impact with existing and potential stakeholders and funders

• Act as a basis for Social Impact Measurement by helping to identify what elements of your programmes to monitor and evaluate

• Provide focus and direction by getting staff ‘on the same page’ with what you are looking to achieve

Check out a Case Study

Funder Services

inFocus works with philanthropic organisations that provide grants and support to third party organisations delivering programmes or initiatives. Funders include charities, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), community groups, governmental or inter-governmental agencies and private sector companies. Our consultancy services are specifically designed to address some of the key challenges that funders face, whether that is:

• Developing and Implementing a funding strategy – We provide focus and direction about the social changes funders wish to generate and help to identify the ideal organisations and activities working in the sector.

• Manging Grants & Impact Measurement & Management Services – We help funders track and measure their grant making success, facilitate learning and to communicate community impact based upon high quality evidence.

• Independent Research, Evaluation and Learning-  We provide a range of different evaluation approaches and methodologies suited to either individual projects or complex funding programmes.

Check out a case study

Evaluation & Research

inFocus conducts independent, external evaluations to facilitate learning and support accountability.

We have conducted evaluations of high complexity projects, programmes and organisations for delivery agencies, funders, policymakers and networks, both in the Sport for Development and Peace and wider international development sector.  We utilise a range of approaches including: Summative; Theory Based; Process; Developmental; Impact; and Participatory.

inFocus executes specific applied research projects on various topics such as Sport for Development, social impact measurement, and strategies for scaling impact. Our findings are designed to be implementable and timely.

Our team is comprised of experienced practitioners who are trained to bridge the gap between traditional research and practical evaluation. We provide a range of different evaluation approaches and methodologies suited to either individual projects or complex funding programmes. We systematically explore and document what is working and highlight areas to for further improvement to help funders explore overall impact strategies.

Check out a Case Study

Building IMM Capacity

inFocus helps delivery agencies, funders and networks use their data effectively to report back to stakeholders and utilise data as a tool for development and growth. We work with organisations to do this by giving support in key areas, based upon their identified and priority needs:

• Developing their IMM Systems – developing Impact measurement and management protocols and frameworks including the basic processes and tools needed that supports a consistent approach to measuring social impact aligned back to a Theory of Change or strong programme rationale.

• Running an IMM system – how to operationalise an IMM system and provide management and training support.

• Using your results – guidance and advice on how to use your results most effectively.

• Training – we have applied 15 years of IMM experience to develop fun and engaging eLearning (online) courses, as well as live training to help our clients to measure and manage impact.

Check out a Case Study

Public Training

InFocus is committed to sharing learning and best-practice within the development and humanitarian sectors.

We regularly run (free to join) public webinars (online workshops) on different topics to share best-practice and generate critical debates between experts and practitioners.

The 90-minute webinars cover a range of topics, including most recently:

• How to use impact measurement and management (IMM) for fundraising and marketing

• How to reach the right target audience for projects/ programmes

• How to form effective partnerships across the academic and non-profit sectors

Click on the ‘Impact Community’ section above to find out how to become a member and receive regular updates on our public training.
Register for Webinars

Learning Communities

When running a programme, project or activity within a community, it is critical for organisations to understand what IS working and what ISN’T and how to more effectively generate social and environmental impact. inFocus set up and run online learning communities around the world that bring organisations together to discuss and draw out best practice around a particular topic.

Typically, for inFocus a learning community includes the following elements:

• The development of a theory of change that maps out the topic being explored by the learning community and acts as a central reference point.

• A series of Webinars (online workshops), hosted by experienced inFocus facilitators which use interactive exercises to draw out learning from participating organisations.

• The development of learning materials (including interactive resources) to share learning more widely

Read about our approach to Peer-to-Peer Learning Communities here.

The Power of Peer to Peer Learning112 KB, 1 file

Strategic Planning

‘A vision without a plan is just a dream. A plan without a vision is just drudgery. But a vision with a plan can change the world.’

Strategy is about asking yourself vital questions concerning What are you trying to achieve? What is the external situation and how can we address it? Are we effective? How can we convince others of this?

inFocus helps organisations to focus on their most critical issues and identify high leverage directions that allow the organisation to renew and reinvent itself, preserving its vitality and its competitive edge.

We’ve worked with non-profits and charities all around the world to scale up, scale out and scale together for more sustainable impact:

• Scale Out – deepen your impact to ensure even more meaningful results are achieved

• Scale Up – to extend the reach of your service or product to a wider audience and affect more lives

• Scale Together – draw upon and work more effectively with others, to enable more sustainable impact

Check out a Case Study

IMM Alumni

Completing all three of the eLearning courses: IMM: Introduction, IMM: Foundation and IMM Builder will also open up ongoing professional development opportunities in IMM with free access to bi-monthly IMM webinars run by inFocus experts.

The 2-hour webinars will provide an opportunity to:

• Interact with other IMM practitioners

• Discuss and debate key IMM topics (for example, using the onilne brain-storming tool shown to the right)

• Learn about more specific/advanced IMM skills e.g. around different sampling or analysis methods

• Get up to date with best practice around IMM

Check out next Alumni Webinars

Custom Training

Over the last 15 years, inFocus has also designed a wide range of different customised training courses for clients around the world. The courses are specifically tailored to the needs of your organisation and attendees in the training, building on the extensive inFocus resources.

Our custom training has covered a range of areas, including inFocus core areas of expertise in impact measurement and management
(IMM), theory of change and strategic planning. We have also developed training on more specific topics, such as the launch of new grant schemes for funders.

Our options for custom training include:

• On-site training, for example, a 1 day to 3 day course at your office

• Live webinars (online training), usually between 90 minutes to 3 hours

• eLearning courses, completed online at the users own pace with interactive articles, videos and exercises.

Check out a Case Study

E-lab

Our E-lab is where you will find all of our open access eLearning resources, developed with and for our partners to disseminate learning and knowledge about a range of important topics that are important to their field of work. For example:

• Evaluation insights: many of our long term evaluations result in key insights and lessons learnt that partners are keen to share more widely

• Learning Community insights: our learning communities bring together expert practitioners and academics and often culminate in practical guidance and tools on a subject of mutual interest

• IMM public resources: inFocus is also committed to share as much of its’ work as possible on an open access basis and will produce short eLearning modules open to the Impact Community

E-lab is coming soon- so watch this space!