Beyond Beneficiary Counting: Innovative Approaches to Understand Impact Better

Development communities continue to face challenges in monitoring ultimate impact of the projects they support. Monitoring is particularly complex when the ultimate beneficiaries are reached only indirectly, or when the engagements end before the ultimate impacts are realized, as is often the case with the projects that address development challenges through private sector engagement and innovations. As a result, impact is often measured as “number of people reached” which does not tell depth or quality of impact made.

The objective of the panel is to exchange ideas with the practitioners who are pushing the envelope of impact assessment to explore opportunities and challenges in estimating the depth of impact, collecting the voice of end beneficiaries, and using the results to inform the future strategies and investment decisions. The panel discussion will bring together representatives of three organizations that take varied approaches to measure the impact beyond “reach”. The panel includes:

• Global Innovation Fund: GIF has developed practical impact assessment approach. It enables to assess the depth of impact up front.
• 60-Decibels: 60-Decibels developed lean data approach to collect user voices directly through mobile technology.
• Luminate (Omidyar Group): Luminate is shifting its approach from impact-driven investment to learning-driven investment, structuring each investment to test their hypothesis.

Through brief presentations and moderated discussion, the panel will explore the following questions:

1) What are the possible ways to estimate and collect data for impact on the end beneficiaries, that goes beyond “number of people reached”?
2) How do the approaches presented by the panel complement each other?
3) How do these approaches help establish the benchmark?
4) How can we use the results data to shape future strategies?