Most conversations about impact focus on one question: how do we measure impact?
It’s an important question. We spend a great deal of time developing theories of change, identifying indicators, designing surveys and collecting evidence. We debate methodologies and worry about the quality of our data.
But once the data has been collected, another question emerges.
Now what?
I’ve worked with organizations that have robust impact frameworks and comprehensive reports. They can tell you who they reached, what changed and, in some cases, even estimate the value they created for people, communities or the environment.
Yet when it comes to making decisions, that information often sits quietly in a report until the next funding application, annual report or board meeting.
The challenge, then, isn’t always measurement. It’s what happens afterwards.
For me, this is where impact governance comes in.
When we talk about governance, we often think about financial oversight, risk, compliance or, more recently, ESG. But organizations also create impacts through their products, services, operations and relationships with employees, customers, suppliers, communities and the environment. Those impacts, both positive and negative, deserve governance too.
Impact governance is about how boards oversee those impacts. Do they receive meaningful information about the organization’s effects on people and the planet? Do they ask difficult questions when the evidence points to unexpected or unintended outcomes? Do they use what they learn to shape strategy, allocate resources and hold the organization accountable for the difference it is making?
In other words, impact data shouldn’t exist simply to demonstrate that an organization has created impact. It should help leaders understand whether they are creating the change they intend, where they are falling short and what needs to change.
Many organizations have invested heavily in measuring impact over the past decade. That’s progress. But collecting more data doesn’t automatically lead to better decisions. Evidence only becomes valuable when it informs discussion, challenges assumptions and influences the choices that organizations make.
Perhaps that’s the next stage in the evolution of the field.
Not measuring more.
Not producing longer impact reports.
But building governance systems that enable boards and senior leaders to learn from impact information and use it in the same way they use financial information: as an essential part of making strategic decisions.
Because organizations don’t create greater impact simply by measuring it. They create greater impact when what they learn changes what they do.
Melek De-Wint 