We hear the word "impact" more and more often. We want to work and have "impact". Or we want to 'impact' the people we are addressing. Beyond these things, we rarely fully understand what "impact" is and how we make it. The Civil Society Development Foundation (CSDF) has developed a special programme that addresses these concerns for the NGO sector. After several successful meetings with civil society representatives from across the country, we asked some of them what this programme is like and what it has brought as benefits in their organisational development.
This series of interviews also brings you some of the results of the programme as experienced by the participants.
We first spoke to Iulia Dromereschi - president and co-founder of "Information Association of Voices for Inclusion". She shared with us some of the results she has had from going through the Impact3 programme, as well as the challenges she faced.
What did you decide to give up or change about measuring and communicating impact after participating in IMPACT3?
We will probably try not to imagine that anyone from the outside understands who we are and what we do as well as we do. The vision from the inside does not get directly conveyed to those who are just learning about what we do and what we aim to do, for example.
What have you decided to start doing in terms of impact measurement and communication after participating in IMPACT3?
After IMPACT3 and all the moments of reflection it has given us, we are thinking of approaching more often potential direct supporters, i.e. sponsors, because our programmes are specific. Therefore, we would better harmonise our vision with entities whose goals correspond to ours. It's better than trying to fit what we do only within the terms and conditions of project indicators.
What have you decided needs to continue in terms of measuring and communicating impact after participation in the programme?
We will continue to analyse our impact at organisational level. We want to have ongoing discussions with volunteers and on the board, to create opportunities for feedback and direct expressions that bring results. We want to meet as often as possible and face to face because this is what connects us most strongly.
3 reasons why you recommend other NGOs to participate in IMPACT3?
For us, the comparative analysis of the organisational matrix helped us to discover things we had not thought of and to confirm our working hypotheses. It has been beneficial to discover that the solutions we are thinking of are also the ones agreed by the experts. Then it was a good opportunity to get to know other organisations more closely, from the inside. There are organisations that we would not otherwise have had the opportunity to meet, learn about and discover the practices of. It was a programme that gave us the opportunity to communicate differently inside and outside the organisation.
