Internal impact measurement methodology

Summary

Background: IDinsight was established a decade ago to help non-governmental organizations, government actors, philanthropies, international agencies, and other social sector actors use data and evidence to yield more significant benefits for marginalized communities in Africa and Asia. Our primary goal remains to help our partners maximize their impact. Over the last ten years, IDinsight has grown to 240+ people from 25+ countries, who have worked with 60 non- profits, 30 government partners, 27 foundations, and 38 other organizations.¹

What lessons for the future lie behind these numbers and experiences? What hypotheses might we generate using this data? Which types of projects seemed to generate the most impact? What conditions correlated with success or struggle?

Between October 2021 and April 2022, IDinsight conducted an internal exercise to approximate our projects’ contribution to social impact to date (through October 2021). IDinsighters from all regions contributed crucial data, which were then analyzed and reviewed. The purpose of this exercise was to incorporate insights from the data into internal decision-making to increase our future impact, in line with our five-year strategy.
This is just the first step in our evolving internal impact measurement work. In the future, we will continue to improve this methodology and look for more ways across our theory of change where we can generate, analyze, and use such data to improve our decision-making, and thus, our impact.

We’d like to thank the team at the Global Innovation Fund, whose framework and materials we heavily borrowed and adapted for this exercise.²

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