Measuring Impact - Nicva

Tools for impact assessment 13
The reasons for these limitations are clear:
• conventional questionnaire and hard indicator-based approaches do not lend
themselves to the assessment of impact that cannot either be predetermined or
readily quantified;
• short timescales are not conducive to the measurement of long-term impact;
• collective impact measurement requires the co-operation of a number of
organisations or projects. Organisations may be unwilling to take part in an
evaluation of collective impact, being interested only in their own impact;
• unanticipated impacts, if not central to an organisation’s mission or objectives, are
unlikely to be top priority for staff or funders, hence the lack of tools that address
these issues.
In short, not only are collective, long-term and unanticipated impact rarely high on the list of
priorities for many organisations and funders, there are also significant practical problems
involved in measuring them, which means that these types of impact will tend to be neglected.
Conclusion 2.5
While it may not be possible to change the particular attitudes that act as a barrier to
assessing these types of impact, it may be possible to develop approaches that at least make it
possible to capture some aspects of impact that are currently difficult to assess. Chapters 4 to
7 look at the four approaches that were developed by WCVA, NCVO, SCVO and NICVA
that attempt to address some of the limitations with the existing tools. The following chapter
looks at some of the ideas and concepts that underpin these approaches.