Impacts and Outcomes

Impacts and outcomes – these words get thrown around a lot, but what do they really mean? And what’s the difference between them anyways? Well, let’s break it down.

Outcomes are the direct results or effects of something – they are the short-term changes or benefits that happen because of an activity or program. For example, if a nonprofit runs a job training program, an outcome might be that participants get jobs after completing the program. Outcomes tend to be specific and measurable things that can be observed or quantified.

Impacts on the other hand refer to the broader, long-term effects of an outcome. Impacts are the changes that happen in the community or society because of an outcome. Using the job training example again, an impact might be reduced unemployment rates in the community the nonprofit serves. So the outcome is the individual getting a job, while the impact is how getting those jobs affects the wider community.

Basically, outcomes drive impacts – the outcomes lead to broader impacts over time. But it’s important to understand outcomes don’t always lead to impacts. Just because you achieved the outcome you wanted, doesn’t mean it will create the impact you hoped for. This is because outcomes are under the nonprofit’s control, while impacts rely on many external factors.

Key Differences Between Outcomes and Impacts

Here are some of the key differences between outcomes and impacts:

• Outcomes are short-term results, impacts are long-term effects
• Outcomes can be measured directly, impacts are harder to quantify
• Outcomes are under the organization’s control, impacts rely on external factors
• Outcomes are specific changes, impacts are broader societal effects

Understanding the difference between outcomes and impacts is important for nonprofits and social enterprises for a few reasons:

1. It affects how you set goals and measure success. If you confuse outcomes and impacts, you may set unrealistic goals.
2. It influences how you communicate your results. You need to accurately represent what you achieved.
3. It shapes your evaluation strategy. You have to use different methods to assess outcomes vs impacts.

Let’s explore each of these in more detail:

Setting Goals and Measuring Success

When setting goals for your programs and activities, you want to be clear whether you are aiming for specific outcomes or broader impacts. Outcomes are usually easier to control and quantify – you can set numerical targets for things like “number of people trained” or “percent with improved skills”. Impacts are trickier to set concrete goals around, since they rely on many external factors.

Similarly, when you evaluate success after the fact, you can directly measure whether you hit your outcome goals but assessing your impact is harder. For example, you can easily track that 100 people got jobs after your training program. But determining whether your program led to reduced community unemployment requires deeper analysis to isolate your influence from other factors.

If you set vague, ambitious impact goals upfront and then just measure outcomes later, it will seem like you failed even if you achieved your intended outcomes. Being clear on the difference as you set goals and evaluate helps you accurately judge your performance.

Communicating Results

How you communicate your results also depends on whether you are reporting on outcomes or impacts. It’s easy to tout the outcomes you achieved – number trained, skills improved, jobs gained, etc. But unless you’ve done in-depth measurement, you can’t definitively claim you made a certain impact – it’s safer to describe the outcomes and potential impacts.

Exaggerating your impact without evidence risks misleading funders and stakeholders. And if you do have rigorous impact evaluation, you need to be clear on the methodology used to attribute the impact to your activities.

Distinguishing between outcomes and impacts lets you accurately represent what you’ve achieved at different stages.

Evaluation Strategy

Measuring outcomes is relatively straightforward – you can directly quantify things like participation rates, completion rates, skill improvements, employment results, etc. But measuring impact requires more complex evaluation strategies to determine whether observed community changes are actually a result of your work.

Common impact evaluation methods include randomized control trials, regression analysis, contribution analysis, case studies, and social return on investment. The right approach depends on your type of intervention and the questions you want to study. The key point is you need a deliberate strategy to measure impact – it doesn’t just happen automatically when you track outcomes.

Understanding this difference upfront allows you to budget, plan, and staff appropriately to measure both outcomes and impacts.

Real World Examples

Let’s look at some real world examples to illustrate the differences between outcomes and impacts:

Education Program

Outcomes: Number of students served, graduation rates, test scores, college admission rates

Potential Impacts: Increased lifetime earnings, reduced poverty rates, economic growth for the community

Homelessness Intervention

Outcomes: Number housed, housing retention rates, participants employed

Potential Impacts: Reduced chronic homelessness, decreased burden on emergency services, improved community quality of life

Youth Development Program

Outcomes: Number of youth enrolled, life skills gained, high school graduation rates

Potential Impacts: Reduced risky behaviors, lower incarceration rates, healthier life choices

In each example, the outcomes are the direct results of the program activities that the organization can track. But assessing whether those outcomes led to real community impacts requires deeper measurement to confirm the role the program played.

Getting Started With Impact Measurement

Hopefully this gives you a good overview of the difference between outcomes and impacts! Here are some tips to get started with impact measurement:

• Be clear whether your goals and metrics are tracking outcomes or impacts
• Avoid exaggerating impacts before you have strong evidence
• Learn about common impact measurement approaches like RCTs, contribution analysis, etc.
• Read case studies to see how other nonprofits have measured impact
• Partner with experts like academics who can lend evaluation expertise

Measuring impact is challenging but critical if you want to understand your long-term effects and make smart decisions. Take time to learn about impact evaluation and incorporate it into your programs.

With a commitment to outcomes and impacts, you can gain insights to refine your work and demonstrate your true influence in creating social change.