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April 26, 2024
By Alexandra Pittman, ImpactMapper CEO
What happens when we treat stories as valuable data? Can stories be used to learn and to fast forward meaningful social change?
These questions have inspired the mission and growth of ImpactMapper as a company and today I want to provide you with some examples as to why storytelling matters for impact tracking.
More than a decade ago, while I was working on my PhD dissertation, I partnered with a women’s rights organization in Morocco to co-develop an evaluation for one of their women’s leadership training programs. The formula of data collection was fairly straightforward , we conducted written surveys and did interviews with participants and as we were defining indicators and metrics, I came across with a story that changed my perspective: A woman named Asma (name changed) said one of the biggest leadership decisions she made due to the training program was to take the train, alone—to travel from her hometown to attend the leadership training.
At a first glance, this does not seem like an outcome that one would include in an evaluation. It does not even appear to be exceptional, unless you take this story in context. This woman lived in a rural community that was very conservative where women did not travel alone. This was a radical act of leadership that required taboo breaking and also negotiating norms and desired behaviors with her husband within their family. This example teaches us the power of stories as a means to surface outcomes and areas of progress and failures that would otherwise go unseen and unheard. Yet these are the stories that best represent the impact of that leadership training program. Collecting stories and creating datasets offers us the opportunity for others to define success on their own terms, and supports meaningful impact tracking.
Stories are intrinsic to how we all, as humans, relate to one another. Stories have the ability to move us and inspire action. Stories can motivate and provide the driving energy to end gender-based violence, promote human rights, and seek environmental justice. Perhaps you are already sitting on top of significant amounts of stories embedded in interviews, surveys or grantee reports and wondering…
Below I share three brief examples of how our company has helped our clients achieve these goals.
If you want to hone your storytelling skills for impact tracking, we still have a few spots left for our upcoming Impact & Storytelling Training of Trainers program this June 21-27 in Norway.
ImpactMapper has been a learning partner for Malala Fund since 2019. We have supported the development of their Theory of Change, outcomes and metrics and reporting processes for all of their grantmaking portfolios. In 2023, we created an Impact Report for the first year of the Girl Fund Programme with the MF team. They have also supported ImpactMapper’s tech development through a pilot grant on equitable AI and autocoding text data.
Are you looking for impact reporting consulting, tech development or storytelling skills development training? Schedule a meeting with us.
With the help of the ImpactMapper consulting team, the Spotlight Initiative has developed a Compendium of Innovative and Good Practices and Lessons Learned focused on the historic 500 million Euro fund and partnership between the EU and UN to end violence against women and girls around the world. We developed the methodology, conducted site visits in 6 countries, conducted surveys, analyzed and coded over 320 documents. From this data, we wrote a detailed case study-based Compendium surfacing impacts and insights from 5 years of programme implementation across six outcome areas: law and policy, institutions, norms, prevention, data, and civil society and women’s movements. The Compendium will be published soon in Q2 2024.
Do you have dozens or hundreds of grantee reports or evaluations that need synthesis? We can help you, inquire about our consulting services.
Urgent Action Fund Africa uses ImpactMapper software to track and learn about their grantmaking outcomes. They also collect data beyond grantee partners to the broader philanthropic and nonprofit ecosystem, supporting horizontal accountability. For example, UAF-Africa has gathered information on their contributions and performance in the broader philanthropic ecosystem. The Fund also has consistently used ImpactMapper surveys after their presentations and workshops to gather feedback and insights on their work, including supporting their outreach and communication strategy.
Want to learn more about how our software can support your impact reporting? Book a free personalized demo with us.