What is happening at BIG?
We are clear that impact takes place at a number of levels at the Big Lottery Fund.
Project level
Most importantly we need to support the organisations that apply for or receive funding from us to measure their own impact, for their own benefit. These benefits might include: understanding whether and how aims and outcomes are achieved, supporting accountability to funders and other stakeholders, understanding what is working well and less well in terms of impact on beneficiaries (the people who benefit from project activity) in order to refine and improve activities, and sharing good practice with organisations doing similar work.
If you are applying to BIG or already hold a grant, you may want to find out more about what we recommend and require in terms of impact and impact measurement. An essential first step is to be clear about what you are trying to do and how you are going to do it. Our guide, Getting funding and planning successful projects, helps organisations applying to us for a grant to develop and explain the need, aim, outcomes, indicators and activities for their project. It includes a section about resources that can help with understanding impact.
Programme level
We need to understand the impact of our individual funding programmes, to refine those programmes as they run, to support and help improve the projects they fund, and to share good practice and influence policy at BIG and beyond.
We have produced a guide for staff at the Big Lottery Fund who are developing new funding programmes, An introduction to impact measurement. This explains why it’s important to measure impact, before setting out the main questions to address when looking for the best approach to measuring the impact of a funding programme. There is also an annex (from May 2012) that includes details of further resources on impact measurement. Although this introduction was written for our staff it may be useful for anyone interested in the subject, and so we are happy to share it.
A continuing support initiative for grant-holders in two of our strategic programames in Northern Ireland will have the added benefit of allowing us to aggregate all projects and so report more effectively on programme impact. Read more about the Measuring Change initiative.
Portfolio and strategic level
We also have to consider ways to understand and communicate our impact at the organisation-wide level and across each of the four countries (portfolios) of the UK, to understand and maximise the value of lottery funding for communities and individuals.
Learning about our impact
Like other funders and the sector as a whole, BIG is at a fairly early stage of developing and implementing approaches that focus on impact.
But we are keen not only to help the groups we fund to report on how they are helping people and communities in need, but also to apply what we as an organisation are learning, and to understand and maximise our impact.
To help us to do this, we have reviewed aspects of our impact across the financial year 2011/12, highlighting examples of how we have applied learning and indeed what we have learnt about the impact of our funding over that year. Read Learning about our impact to find out more.
Our wider work on impact
In addition, we have a role to play in the wider funding sector. We are active in current impact-related initiatives such as Inspiring Impact and the Alliance for Useful Evidence.
Read more general information about impact and impact measurement.
More resources on impact.
An example of putting our thinking into practice: replicating effective work in Scotland.