DeCAL: Our Impact Measurement
and Management Methodology

The first step in becoming data-driven is to design an impact framework for your organization.

In the most basic sense, an impact framework translates your organization's mission into key metrics that allow you to track and measure progress towards goals and communicate your impact effectively.

A great framework will include your mission and vision, and will define objectives and Key Impact Indicators (KIIs) to measure across 5 key dimensions of impact:

• Who: Who are we serving - e.g Demographics / characteristics, # of recipients
• What: What are we delivering and how much - e.g Product, services, capital 
• Quality: What is the quality of our delivery - e.g NPS, utilization, retention  
• Better Off: How are those who we are serving better off? 
• Community Contribution: With a lens of contribution (vs. attribution) you'll select community level measures that you want to track within your impact theme to support your strategy and execution

Defining this framework ensures that everyone in your organization is collecting the right data, making it possible to baseline key metrics and track outcomes. It also supports effective fundraising and grant applications, and will inform how UpMetrics connects you with mission-aligned organizations.

Don’t have a framework and don’t know where to start? UpMetrics free Starter Plan will guide you through the process of creating an impact framework, and provide free templates and examples to help you quickly get started.

Once you've identified the objectives and key impact indicators that matter to your organization, the next step is to capture the datapoints outlined in your framework. 

The good news is that most organizations have lots of data. The challenge can be navigating multiple systems, and in some cases, pen and paper documents, to ensure the data you need is in a format you can use.

UpMetrics makes it easy to import and centralize data from existing sources into our platform, and gather new data using customizable data capture and survey tools. This enables you to create a single source of truth for your impact data and simplifies data management moving forward.

From there, you'll want to format and clean your data to prepare it for analysis.

Once the data is centralized, the next step is to leverage visualizations to analyze your organization’s progress towards your goals and gather insights from your impact data.

Compelling data visualizations and interactive dashboards provide visibility into programs and help you understand what your data is telling you so that you can understand what's working, uncover areas of improvement, and make informed decisions.

Once you have measured performance, the next steps are to learn and adapt based on the information you've gathered, and leverage those insights to further your mission. 

The UpMetrics platform allows you to show others the impact you are making over time and tell compelling stories that use data to paint a complete picture of your impact. This helps organizations fundraise or allocate resources more effectively and, ultimately, scale the impact of their work. 

Here are a few ways to leverage your data in UpMetrics:

💝  Showcase your Work: Showcase the impact your organization is creating to inspire support and tell your story effectively.

📊  Simplify Reporting: Gather and visualize impact data to track and measure the outcomes of your work and simplify reporting.

🎯 Improve your Programs: Use data-driven insights to inform and optimize your impact moving forwards.

💸  Raise more Funding: Tell an impact story backed by clear and credible data to support effective funding initiatives.

👋  Connect with Mission-Aligned Organizations: Get matched and connect with mission-aligned organizations towards funding and growth opportunities.

👀  Share Real-Time Updates: Share read-only links to your dashboards, or embed dashboard visualizations in your website, to keep stakeholders engaged and informed in real-time.