Impact: Measuring the fruit of our labour
It is pleasure to welcome Andrew Ware to the Viva Team: As the new ‘Head of Impact’ at Viva, it’s not taken me long to recognise that Viva’s networks of partners and staff are hugely motivated and passionate about their work.
Andrew Ware, Head of Impact
More impressive still are the 42 partner networks of thousands of churches and child-focused organisations. Working together, they volunteer their energies and scarce resources to improve the life chances and wellbeing of marginalised children across their cities. Whether from Latin America, Asia or Africa, it’s been great to hear from network coordinators. I’ve learnt about how member organisations are nurtured and empowered to protect children from violence, catch up on missed education and nurture resilience and life skills. Across all 26 countries where these networks and Viva are in partnership, we share a common desire to see our work bearing fruit. Together, we seek positive outcomes for individual children at the margins, whether through keeping them safe or enabling them to learn and thrive.
It was this shared passion for supporting and empowering the marginalised, particularly children - and my faith - that drew me to Viva, building on 20 years of experience in this field. Working previously for World Vision and Christian Blind Mission I have seen and measured the power and impact of strengthened networks, systems and peer groups that support, include and equip marginalised children and also people with disabilities. As a farmer’s son, family man and keen gardener I’m also familiar with the need for careful nurturing to bear fruit – and celebrating the harvest when it comes!
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
The challenge facing us at Viva is how do we prove that our labour is bearing plentiful fruit, and we are reaching our goals? How do we measure the process of change in the lives of individual children? How do we demonstrate the longer-term, sustained impact of our efforts as well as the value being added by Viva to our partner networks? This is where our new Impact Team comes in. We aim to identify and strengthen the good work that’s already being done, spot the impact that’s being missed and work out how best to develop and build suitable impact monitoring systems. Nothing is ‘off the table’; so firstly, we are reviewing Viva’s ‘network health check’ monitoring toolkit, which is in need of renewal, or possibly replacement. Next, we will be discussing the monitoring needs and possible solutions for both partner networks and Viva leading to a fully complete and user-friendly Impact Framework. To guide us, we are seeking a number of partner network coordinators from all regions to join a representative working group to advise and challenge us on the ideas that emerge - please let me know if you are interested! We’re also keen to learn from other organisations who have been on a similar journey to share any good solutions and avoid ‘reinventing the wheel’.
In many ways arriving at a complete yet simple monitoring framework that captures impact data is perhaps the ‘silver bullet’ of the monitoring and evaluation world. Demonstrating that an organisation has nurtured or contributed to long-term change and impact is never easy. It will be a challenging and exciting journey, and I’m sure that it will be fruitful, as we listen, learn and tap into the commitment and creativity of Viva’s passionate team and partner networks.