Impact and Improvement Standards
Are you looking to improve impact measurement and/or continuous improvement practice at your organisation? Our Impact and Improvement Standards will help you to make tangible, achievable progress in a way that does not feel overwhelming.
About the Impact and Improvement Standards
‘Impact and Improvement’ refers to work that you do to both understand the changes that your work contributes to and make this even better as part of an ongoing, data-driven process. We believe this work is an essential part of building a stronger youth sector and ensuring that evaluation leads to meaningful action and higher quality provision, so we have developed a free tool, coaching, and certificate to help with this.
What:
The Standards consist of six domains (broad thematic areas) and 55 ‘items’ that sit underneath these domains, describing specific impact and improvement practices. Participation, equity, and monitoring and evaluation are also threaded throughout each domain.
How:
There are three ways in which your organisation can use the Standards:
Who:
We welcome anyone at your organisation to engage in these opportunities. However, it is worth carefully considering who has the time and capacity to participate fully. It is unlikely that any one person will be able to complete every item in the self-assessment by themselves (unless you work at a very small organisation with detailed insight into all areas) - completing it will therefore require communication with other team members.
You will also need support from any senior colleagues or line managers, to ensure you have the time and headspace to engage with the whole process and access to the relevant information.
When:
The self-assessment tool will be available indefinitely. The extra support (coaching and certification) will be available for free to organisations in England until the end of March 2025. We can also offer up to 60 minutes of free support via Office Hours. This work is supported by funding from DCMS (Department for Culture, Media, and Sport).
Next steps:
Get in touch with us at catherine.mitchell@ymcageorgewilliams.uk or use this code to fill out a registration form and download your copy of the tool:
