Rounding up

Evaluating projects, proving impact and learning from success – and failure

  • how to measure the success of online projects in a meaningful way
  • how to demonstrate what you’re achieving to funders and decision-makers
  • how to use the things you’re measuring to make decisions about what to do next
  • where stories can be more powerful than statistics
  • what to do when you succeed and when you don’t

In most social projects, it’s not enough to succeed: you have to prove it too. Funders and supporters usually want hard evidence of what you have done and the ‘impact’ you have achieved. This can range from hard figures on usage and engagement, to softer stuff like testimonials from beneficiaries and prestigious awards.

'Return on Investment'

The key requirement for funders and project sponsors is usually evidence that the money they’ve spent has made an impact on the things they care about. Fair enough – but matching up funding objectives to the objectives of your community can be tricky. The best funders understand the needs of the community you’re working in, and that beneficiaries should be free to reshape the services on offer. Finding funding that appreciates the human impact above the methods used to get there will make your life much easier when proving the value of your project.

There has been a lot of research on how to demonstrate return on investment within both social enterprise and online ‘web 2.0’ projects. The New Economics Foundation has produced an excellent report Measuring value: A guide to Social Return on Investment, whilst Beth Kanter writes a lot on ROI for non-profits and online communities. The approach you take will depend very much on the specific context you’re working in, and particularly how your funders or employers are currently measuring value. You may find yourself working within someone else’s model, or you might be free to work out your own template.

Either way though, this is where having a clear purpose and an understanding of who you’re trying to help becomes crucial. Set clear, realistic objectives at the start, and the process of demonstrating you achieved them is much easier.

We’ll leave you to research this complex and highly-specialised world yourself. Instead, we’ll focus here on the specific things that make evaluating social technology projects unusual: the massive array of things to measure, and the unpredictability of possible outcomes.