Better Leeds Communities: measuring impact and a strategy for growth
Because of our work, Better Leeds Communities could measure, understand and prove its impact on its clients’ lives. It could plan strategically and report positively to its funders.
Better Leeds Communities (BLC) was set up in 1983. Its mission is to create opportunities that enable people in Leeds to achieve their potential by raising aspirations, removing barriers and developing abilities that lead to a better life.
In pursuit of its goal to make Leeds a better place to live, BLC delivers a range of services including advice, social prescribing and activities for children and young people.
All this its work is designed to:
- Improve employability
- Provide sustained support to families
- Reduce child poverty
In April 2016, BLC started working with Hall Aitken on a strategic Theory of Change review designed to strengthen the organisation and support its growth. The project lasted for three months.
Stage one: understanding BLC and developing its Theory of Change. We ran a workshop with BLC’s staff and volunteers so that they could develop their organisation’s Theory of Change, its outcomes and pathways. We also reviewed the needs and opportunities for BLC’s activities in Leeds. This local understanding informed the Theory of Change.
Stage two: developing an evaluation framework. BLC’s Theory of Change was used to examine how projects contribute to the charity’s refined organisational outcomes.
Stage three: measuring impact. Having identified relevant indicators, we designed a tool to enable BLC to measure the social value of its work; how it improved clients’ wellbeing and increased their financial resilience.
Stage four: recommendations. We showed how BLC could report externally, to funders and commissioning organisations, on the that impact its work was having on communities in Leeds.
"The specialist expertise available from Hall Aitken has meant that the quality of work has exceeded what we could have achieved internally. We really appreciate their support and feel we are now in a much better position strategically and operationally going forward."