As this decade draws to a close, socially conscious/responsible organizations are facing a growing set of challenges and opportunities as greater scrutiny from stakeholders begins to gather pace. These organizations, now more than ever, must demonstrate how they impact sustainable value that can be social, environmental, and economical. In other words, how do these organizations measure and sustain impact, over the long-term?

Professional development courses often tout the seemingly simple processes used to measure impact. Specifically, leveraging stakeholders early and often, developing theories of action focused on a few priorities, and implementing performance management discipline to include baseline (current state) metrics and target (future state) metrics.

For the most part, I agree with the touted process recommendations. Although these processes appear straightforward, I want to warn you that there are critical lessons learned that I would like to share with you about developing impact analysis programs:

Keep it simple the first time around: If this is your first attempt at defining and measuring impact, it is always best to start with something simple to get the hang of the methodology. Measuring the impact of one project may be easier than measuring the impact of the whole organization.

The analysis process can be resource-intensive: There are definite costs to implementing an impact measurement process. Usually, these costs are in the form of the time commitment of resources (internal and external). I recommend that you start slowly and build staff capacity by implementing the processes one at a time.

Engaging the practitioner is essential: Accurate measurement is often challenging, especially when we know that most social outcomes are “caused” by multiple factors. I recommend that your organization work closely with external stakeholders to identify sound metrics and data collection instruments.

Lastly, don’t get discouraged. In most instances, the process is often more valuable than the product. Over time, organizations develop the ability to understand better how well they are achieving their mission and strategy by identifying and measuring their impact.

Do you agree?