Our latest SIMNA NSW workshop, held on 19 August 2014, focused on creating an outcomes culture in a small NGO. This is a contentious issue, as small NGOs face pressure to measure the impact of their work in order to engage funders and continue programs.

To demonstrate how it can be done, we heard from Beth Stockton and Maya Romic, Learning and Development Consultants at Results Leadership Group Australia. Results Leadership Group Australia is the social enterprise of NSW Family Services (FAMs).

Louisa McKay, workshop facilitator and manager of Results Leadership Group Australia, introduced FAMs as a runner-up in the 2014 Impact Measurement Awards. FAMs is the peak body for family support services in NSW and has over 300 members across the state.

She explained that FAMs were approached by the state government to implement Results Based Accountability (RBA), an impact measurement framework, with a pilot group of members. ’It wasn’t enough to just tell people that we were doing great things’, Louisa explained. RBA gave them the framework to prove what FAMs members were achieving and explain how they helped improve their clients’ lives.

Louisa explained that RBA is now a part of the FAMs strategic plan, is used as a performance management tool for staff and is incorporated into the FAMs annual report. In this respect, RBA has helped create an ‘outcomes culture’ that permeates the operations and strategy of the organisation.

Maya and Beth outlined the key benefits of working within a clear impact measurement framework:

• It focuses individual efforts on outcomes
• It drives efficiency at the individual and organisational levels
• It aids transparency

They also explored the key lessons learnt from the process of implementing impact measurement across their organisation, including:

1. Don’t wait for the perfect conditions to arise before starting to measure your impact, just get started with the resources you already have and learn along the way
2. Explore systems to support implementation and maintenance of an impact measurement framework e.g. software
3. Become comfortable with the uncomfortable: impact measurement may reveal that your program results are not great, it is important to know this even though it may be upsetting

As always, a lively group discussion followed. Attendees discussed how social impact measurement results can be used to attract funding for programs and organisations. The tendency for funding agreements to continue to focus on outputs, as opposed to outcomes, was also raised. Overall, attendees came away with the understanding that the size of your organisation doesn’t matter when it comes to impact measurement.

Thanks again to Hub Sydney for hosting the event in their break-out space and to the folk from Results Leadership Group Australia for sharing your experiences with us.