Impact

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Impact

• Are we making a difference?

João Armando G. - ESC 6th Forum on Youth
Programme and Adult Resources Obidos, Portugal,
18 - 22 March 2009
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Impact? What Impact?

• What impact are we talking about?
• Internal In young people? In local groups? In
  regions?
• External Also the environments Impact on us

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• We invest a lot in enabling Input
• (people, money, materials)
• We organize a lot of Activities
• (trainings, handbooks, camps)
• We can measure our Output
• (People trained, participants in camps)
• We can identify some Outcomes from what we do
• (More progression, better acountability)
• But how can we know what real Impact we have?

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• Impact is all changes resulting from an activity,
  project or organisation. It includes
• intended as well as unintended,
• negative as well as positive, and
• long-term as well as short-term effects
• Impact Outcome is less estimation of what would
  have happened anyway

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• What was the last thing you have done that will
  probably have an Impact in the local groups of
  your association?

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Key topics related to impact

• Culture Structure
• Participation Communication
• Quality experiences
• Evaluation/assessment/review

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1. Culture Structure
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• Culture is defined as a set of shared beliefs,
  values, customs, norms and behaviors that members
  of a society use to relate to their world and
  each other.

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or
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or
Local
Regional
Local
Local
Local
Local
Regional
National
Local
Local
Local
Local
Regional
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2. Participation communication
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• Participation may mean to involve people in
  building the process of change and not only to be
  informed at the end of it

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Benefits of Participation

• Democracy strengthens committment of members
• Decisions more robust and less controversial
• Knowledge integrates different types of
  knowledge
• Project allows adjustments from the early phase
• Quality in the decision making process more
  sustained decisions improving the acceptance
• Implementation makes it easy

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Dimensions on participation
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Levels of participation (David Wilcox)
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Participation tools

• Scout magazine
• Website ( Forums)
• Newsletters
• Caravans
• Assemblies
• Workshops
• Seminars
• Training sessions
• Focus groups
• Pilot groups
• Surveys
• (e)Mailings
• Road shows
• Interviews

• Meetings
• Leaflets
• Partnerships
• Conferences Foruns
• Call center
• Resource center
• Polls
• Networks
• (Educational) Materials
• Events

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3. Quality experiences
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• Making people go through a concrete experience is
  the best way to have an impact
• "Experience is not what happens to you, it is
  what you do with what happens to you"
• (Aldous Huxley)
• Tell me and Ill forgetShow me and I may
  remember Involve me and Ill understand.
  Chinese
  Proverb

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4. Assessment /review /evaluation
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Doing Quality work is

• Not just playing at activities
• Not only organising camps big events
• Not only writing programmes and books
• Not only discussing around the campfire
• Not only having improved training systems

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But using the Quality Spiral
PLAN
ACT
DO
CHECK

• William Edwards Deming (14/10/1900 20/12/1993)

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• Evaluation is a systematic process of collecting
  and analyzing information that determines to what
  extent an action, project or programme has
  achieved its defined goals and objectives.
• A culture of EAR must be encouraged in all levels
• Evaluation is a good thing
• Evaluation is a starting point

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Measuring Impact

• Some impacts cannot be measured
• There are short, medium and long term impacts
• There are unantecipated impacts
• Methods
• Quantitative
• Qualitative

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Measuring impact - tips

• Identify your audiance(s) and prioritise
• Think about measuring from the beginning
• Set a number of possible indicators (bare in mind
  the distance travelled)
• Include monitoring (follow what is happening)
• Use collaborative and fit-to-purpose methods
• think out of the (scout) box

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• Thank you for your attention