Birkbeck / IVAR seminar Series 2009 - 2010 - Thursday 10th June 2010 - The theory and practice of 'impact'
Birkbeck / IVAR seminar Series 2009 - 2010
The theory and practice of 'impact'
Seminar 5 - Thursday 10th June 2010
5.00 for 5.30 – 7.30pm
Professor Rob Paton - Centre for Public Leadership and Social Enterprise, the Open University Business School
Measurement: Tools or Fools Gold?
Funder demands for ‘outcomes’ and ‘impact’ have induced a cascade of new measurement approaches and tools. Is the measurement problem being cracked at last? How does one chose between them? And how much faith can be placed in them? – doesn’t measurement have all kinds of dysfunctions, as well? Measurement consultants will be particularly welcome at this session, but will not necessarily enjoy it.
Leila Baker & Lucy Heady – Senior Research Officer, IVAR; Head of Measurement, New Philanthropy Capital
Assessing the impact of multi-purpose community organisations: do we have a problem here?
Why is impact assessment so hard for multi-purpose community organisations and why are they so keen to find a way to do it? How is an action research project involving three different research organisations and nine diverse community organisations developing approaches to impact assessment? The foundations of this research are the stories each organisation can tell about their history, their communities and the things that go on there. Our story will begin with a description of the organisations involved and their views about whether and why impact assessment is problematic. We’ll describe the action research process which enabled us to build a picture of the distinctive features of multi-purpose community organisations and how these relate to the difference they make in communities. We’ll conclude with a description of the four overlapping approaches to impact assessment that we have developed and are now trialling and which we hope will tell us a rich story about the impact of multi-purpose community organisations.
Speakers:
Leila Baker is an experienced qualitative researcher who has been working in the third sector for twenty years, starting out as a volunteer in homelessness hostels in London and Oxford and including a stint as Shelter’s Research Manager between 1995 and 2004. Leila has carried out research and evaluation for a wide variety of small charities and community projects, local authorities and housing associations as well as national charities and think tanks. Leila has a particular interest in action research methods as well as the use of participative and visual methods. Leila is leading IVAR's research on impact as well as the evaluation of the National Empowerment Partnership.
Lucy Heady heads up NPC's Measurement team. Her focus is on quantitative research, with a view to assessing the results of charities’ work. She has most recently worked on projects to measure the impact of charities on children’s well-being, and to standardise reporting to funders (Turning the tables in England and Turning the tables in Scotland). Lucy has also authored papers assessing the costs and benefits of tackling truancy and school exclusion (Misspent youth), and of services for disabled children (What price an ordinary life?). Before joining NPC, Lucy gained a PhD in physics from the University of Cambridge and completed post-doctoral work at the university. Lucy is a trustee of the charity Pro Bono Economics.
Professor Rob Paton is based in the Centre for Public Leadership and Social Enterprise in the Open University Business School. Starting with studies of worker co-operatives in the 1970s, he has had a long-standing interest in how value-based organisations can sustain both their social commitments and effective, enterprising forms of management and organisation. His 2003 book Managing and Measuring Social Enterprises examined the use of performance measurement & improvement methods.