5 questions Christian organisations need to answer when thinking about their impact
One of the most life giving parts of our work is listening to Christian organisations tell us about the vision they feel God has given them to impact society. We are consistently impressed by the passion, conviction, and determination of these organisations to see social and spiritual impact in the lives of the people that have been put on their heart.
However, these organisations find themselves challenged by five main groups of questions that both themselves, funders, and supporters, are increasingly asking. Whilst they are difficult questions, if they can answer them, these Christian organisations can be better released to turn their vision into impact.
1. What does success look like?
It's one thing to define success in normative and theological terms: “Fruitfulness”, “flourishing”, “Kingdom transformation”, “restoration”, “renewal”. These are all phrases used by Christian organisations when describing their vision. But what do these actually mean, and how can we define these concepts in a way that makes them observable whilst also maintaining their significance?
We have increasingly found that it helps to define these concepts in terms of specific changed beliefs, behaviors, and experiences. Doing so enables organisations to focus their vision and implement the best strategy to see specific and measurable changes occur.
2. Who is defining “success” and how it will occur?
Secondly, when it comes to defining and creating change, are we bringing those we serve into the process and considering ourselves primarily accountable to them?
Many organisations have come a long way from “we know what’s best for you” approaches, but it's easy to slip into making assumptions regarding how change really happens and what those we serve want, think and feel. In this regard, we strongly recommend including those we seek to serve in answering this question through stakeholder workshops and research into the sociocultural and psychological factors at play.
“It's often still easy to slip into making assumptions regarding how change really happens and what target beneficiaries want, think and feel”
3. To what extent are we achieving this success?
Defining success, understanding need, and thinking through how change happens will already increase the likelihood of delivering desired outcomes. But to what extent do we know if we are actually achieving this success? And how can we measure the impact we are actually having?
Organisations and funders are increasingly looking to evidence of the difference that activities are making. This is a more than just collecting feedback on the experience of an activity or programme, but rather is about learning together with those we serve about any transformation occurring in their lives – expected and unexpected - and crucially about the causes of these changes.
By measuring impact we are able to collect the information required to understand where programmes have succeeded, as well as the information needed to mitigate and reduce any negative impact. This can be as simple as a retrospective impact evaluation, asking those we serve to assess at a single point in time where they were at before engaging in a programme, where they are at today, and what are the reasons behind this change.
As a way to help organisations start to answer these questions, we are launching Eido Impact Cohorts: a cohort-based course to help Christian organisations design, discern, measure, report, and improve their social and spiritual impact.
4. How can we improve and grow?
Mapping and measuring impact are valuable steps, and they are even more so when they lead to better outcomes for those we are seeking to serve. Organisations are therefore increasingly interested in how to translate evidence into improved impact through practical application of that evidence. How can evidence be used to improve strategy? How can evidence be used effectively to make decisions?
Once again, it is important to engage those we are serving in the interpretation of evidence, allowing them to shape the resulting decision-making processes.
In parallel with these questions, organisations looking to scale and increase their resources are wanting to use impact evidence to engage Christian and secular donors and funders. How can organisations better use the evidence they are collecting to scale and grow?
Part of the solution lies in using evidence well, using it to tell an organisational story, rather than flooding audiences with mountains of raw data.
5. How do we integrate this with discernment and faith?
Whilst Christian organisations can learn from best-practice approaches from the secular world, it is vital that their faith is not left on the sidelines. But what does this look like? How can God and faith be included in a theory of change? How can we prayerfully interpret evidence? And how can we continue to demonstrate the fundamental differences that faith makes in our programme strategies?
These questions can be challenging. But rather than simply stating that ‘God is part of everything’ and leaving it at that, we encourage organisations to consider what God and Christian faith influence each stage of their impact strategy. What, if any, difference does God make to how they think about what makes their organisation successful? How does the Christian faith influence how they view the problems they want to solve, and who they choose to work with to address them?
We’ve seen how this process not only allows organisations to explicitly acknowledge how God underpins their organisational success but to gain the clarity they need to be even more successful.
“But rather than simply stating that ‘God is part of everything’ and leaving it at that, we encourage organisations to consider what God and Christian faith contribute to each stage of their impact strategy”
What next?
If the scale of vision for impact within Christian organisations matched the scale of tangible transformation they delivered, Christian organisations would likely be the most impactful in the world.
Taking steps to better align these two can begin with answering these five questions. Whilst by no means exhaustive, the questions outlined above are some of the most fundamental to turning this vision into impact.
As a way to help organisations start to answer these questions, we are launching Eido Impact Cohorts: a cohort-based course to help Christian organisations design, discern, measure, report, and improve their social and spiritual impact.
