Laurie Trounce, head of the charity team at Stephens Scown LLP, asks “how can your charity get started with measuring its impact?”
Measuring the difference that your charity makes is an essential part of good governance. Having a shared purpose which is easy to communicate enables trustees, staff, volunteers, supporters and beneficiaries to really understand the difference you make and how you achieve it.
The recent Charity Commission paper, The Value of the Charity Sector, argues that failing to understand the importance of the value of the sector places charities at risk. There are real opportunities for all charities to rethink their approach by looking at how their decision making and delivery could become more focused on an objective understanding of their social impact, rather than their economic or social outputs.
By working in this way, charities can use their impact measurement process to;
- engage with wider audiences;
- identify potential collaborations / partnerships;
- improve their accountability to donors, funders and stakeholders; and
- develop an ‘impact culture’ so that impact is at the core of everything the charity does.
Laurie Trounce is a partner and head of the charity team at Stephens Scown. She advises charities with a broad range of charity law related issues including corporate governance, and works with charity clients in a variety of sectors.