Impacts Community of Practice (ICoP)

Measuring impact is a critical activity for effectively reaching objectives both for internal management and for describing achievements. This activity is well developed in businesses and increasingly in governments and NGOs. Yet, networks still face particularly formidable challenges in developing and implementing Impacts Planning, Assessment, Reporting and Learning (IPARL) systems. iScale's Impacts Community of Practice brings together representatives from various networks, evaluation experts and practitioners to share their experiences/expertise, explore the challenges networks face in measuring their impact and develop innovative solutions for these difficulties. The Impacts Community reduces individual time and resource expenditure and promotes increasingly innovative solutions relevant to the broader social change and development fields by capitalizing on the opportunity to learn collectively. The Impacts Community of Practice explores such questions as:

• Why is evaluating the impacts of networks such a priority? Why is it so difficult?
• What is the range of intended and unintended effects of networks?
• How can networks measure, assess, and communicate their impacts more robustly?
• How can specific networks' contributions -- to realizing long-term and system wide goals such as moving 100 million families out of poverty, making the world's fisheries and forests sustainable, or democratizing knowledge for development using information and communication technologies -- be assessed?
• How can the intrinsic value of building and sustaining vibrant global networks be measured and evaluated?

The Impacts Community addresses the pressing issues of impacts planning, assesment, reportings and learning surrounding networks by making key interventions at three specific levels: the individual networks, the field of networks and the wider field of organizations concerned with impact evaluation. The overall objective of the current ICoP projects are to support the development of tools and methodologies that support network IPARL systems through research, peer-learning and capacity building.

The Impacts Community conducts research and create the space for dialogue, knowledge sharing and peer-learning among networks on IPARL practices by:

• Developing case studies of network IPARL practices that can be used for learning by others
• Providing a face-to-face platform for knowledge sharing and exchange by facilitating workshops
• Putting in place online tools that can facilitate knowledge sharing and exchange among networks on IPARL practices
• Researching the current practices of networks in IPARL practices and assessing their adequacy for the field
• Assessing the individual and collective capacities of networks for creating impact by using innovative methods like comparative constituency feedback

The Impacts Community also disseminates and adapts IPARL practices for networks that can contribute to the broader sustainable development field by:

• Creating and advisory board of evaluation experts across the development field with a large representation of Southern experts to provide overview to ICOP's work
• Compiling, adapting and developing "next practice" methodology tools for IPARL systems relevant not only to networks but to the broader change field
• Developing a cohort of Southern IPARL practitioners trained to apply these methods and tools and offer quality services to networks and other organizations in the field
• Publishing papers and books with the findings of the research carried out by the Impacts Community on the practices and experiences of networks as well as the methods and tools developed by it

Updates:

International Advocacy Evaluation Community of Practice

In parternship with the Center for Evaluation Innovation, we are working with international NGOs engaged in advocacy work to develop a community of practice on advocacy evaluation.

Read more...

ICoP Launches First Ever Comparative Constituency Feedback Survey for Transnational Social Change Networks

The Impacts Community of Practice (ICoP) has launched a pilot project to further develop Comparative Constituency Feedback (CCF) as a tool for networks to assess how well they achieve meaningful participation across their key constituents. Nine Transnational social change networks are taking part in the project.  The pilot will produce:

• An overall cohort level report that analyzes the key findings and trends

• Individual comparative reports for each of the participating networks

• A field level comparative report which will include learning from the pilot and
  

• A survey instrument and methodology to be used in future reiterations of the survey.

The main outcome of the pilot project will be a deepened understanding of what constitutes meaningful participation in networks, and a set of testable hypotheses about how that participation may correlate to performance and impact. This understanding will, uniquely, be based on a detailed data set that will provide a basis for comparisons across networks and over time.

Next Generation Network Evaluation

A thorough understanding of current network monitoring and evaluation approaches, methods, and tools is critical for moving the field of network evaluation forward. Creating a foundation of knowledge is necessary to incorporate lessons learned and to avoid duplication of previous efforts. However, to date, little to no systematic review has been completed.

iScale, as part of its continued work through the Impacts Community of Practice (ICoP), has launched a new project to:

• Conduct a scan of current approaches, methods, and tools related to the monitoring and evaluation of networks.
• Produce a synthesis paper including: 1) a comprehensive literature/web review, 2) network evaluation case studies, 3) overview and explanation of iScale's IPARL approach to network evaluation, 4) network case studies of IPARL in action, and 5) overall conclusions and implications.

iScale will host a series of webinars with selected evaluators and funders of networks to share findings and lessons learned from the project.