Program Impact

Stop 30 of 58 · about 7 minutes

What did the money do? How many were served, at what cost, with what outcome? Funders and boards ask for impact, and the answer usually comes from the program team's own records, months after the fact. Program Impact puts service, spend and outcomes on one page, next to the fundraising that paid for them.

Do this stop in the course Read the lesson

The Outcomes Overview tab of Program Impact on the demo charity (a dog rescue): the mission statement, clients served, intake, in care, outcomes, annual and monthly intake, the Outcome Funnel, spend beside funds raised, and the regions map. Open full size

Sample charity: the people and numbers in these screens are made up, so the picture shows the tool, not a result.

The lesson

Program Impact is built from a programs table. On the demo charity's system the program rescues, cares for and rehomes dogs, so the tiles talk about intake, shelter and adoption; yours would use your own program's words. Three tabs:

Outcomes Overview: Our Mission (a text tile with the mission statement), Clients Served, Intake, On Our Care (currently in the program), Outcome Achieved, Positive Outcomes (a percent), Annual Intake, Intake By Month of Year, the Outcome Funnel, Average Days to Outcome, Total Spent on Mission beside Total Funds Raised, a Regions Served map and Cases and Costs by Region.
This Year: Intake This Year against last year, Intake by month, Outcome This Year by outcome type, the Outcome Breakdown donut, Adopted This Year, On Our Care, Program Spend by month, Average Spend By Program Area, a Currently In Shelters map, Spend YTD and Positive Outcomes YTD.
Program Analysis: Total Spend, Average Cost per Service, Client Spend, Client Cases, Program Volume and Program Spend by program area, Outcome by Program Area, Costs Per Positive Outcome, the Spend Trend by quarter and Outcome Costs.

How to use it. For an impact report, read Outcomes Overview top to bottom: served, outcomes, cost, regions. For a funder's question about one program area, use Program Analysis and the Costs Per Positive Outcome card. Put Total Spent on Mission and Total Funds Raised in the same sentence: that is the sentence a board remembers.

Watch this stop · about a minute

More of it in Orbit

Program Spend on the Program Analysis tab: total spend by program area. Open full size

Your turn, in Orbit

Open Program Impact, Outcomes Overview. Read Clients Served, Outcome Achieved and Positive Outcomes.
Read Total Spent on Mission and Total Funds Raised together.
Open Program Analysis. In Program Spend, which program area costs most? In Program Volume, which serves most?
Open This Year. Read Spend YTD against last year.

Quick check

A funder asks what one positive outcome costs on average. Which tab and tile?

Outcomes Overview, Our Mission
This Year, Intake This Year
Program Analysis, Costs Per Positive Outcome

Answer: Program Analysis, Costs Per Positive Outcome

Need a hint?

Cost per outcome is an analysis of the program, not a count of this year.

Why it matters

Impact stops being a story you assemble once a year and becomes a page you can open any day.

Read on

Do this stop yourself

It is stop 30 of 58. Open it in the course, or start from the beginning.

Open this stop in the course

All of Part 4: The dashboards

The whole course, stop by stop