Optimizing Impact with Common Approach
Cigarbox is happy to partner with Common Approach to help non-profits and government agencies optimize their investments for social, cultural, environmental and economic impact. We have more than 10 years of experience helping program and portfolio managers make funding and investment choices with logic, transparency and consistency; we are looking forward to putting that to work in partnership with Common Approach.
Our frameworks and dashboards are customized to your goals- no 'off the rack' solutions. We provide dynamically updated impact information, fine-tuned to your work, giving you all the information you need to measure, report and steer your impact.
Who We Help
Cigarbox typically works with clients who:
-
Support or manage programs with 10 – 200 projects per year
-
Have long term social, economic, environmental or financials goals
-
Our typical clients are welfare foundations, government institutions, cultural foundations, unions, ngo's and financial institutions.
-
Programs can be in one sector or cross sectoral (such as: arts and culture, well-being/preventive health, sports, education and literacy)
-
Approach impact as a core goal, not a nice-to-have, and who want to improve their impact year over year
- what would have happened anyway
= Impact
Leading Indicators
Input
Resources used by the organization (financial, physical and human resources)
Activities
The organization's primary activitities
Outputs
Direct products or services stemming from the activities within the control of the organization
Outcomes
Change that is influenced by but not within the control of the organization
Customized Logical Framework
The Common Approach standard is based on a logical framework that defines the relationships between input, activity, indicator, output, outcome and Impact.
Creating a customized logical framework, with indicators, typically takes 3-4 brainstorm sessions. This provides a strong basis for the impact dashboard and makes future impact management easy. Cigarbox helps you formulate:
-
Your organization's desired impacts, outcomes and outputs
-
Activity characteristics of your projects
-
Underlying indicators and data sources
Process
Design Your Impact Dashboard
Based on a complete logical framework Cigarbox customizes your impact dashboard, taking into account:
-
Desired impact goals, outcomes and outputs
-
Activity characteristics of your projects
-
Underlying indicators and data sources
Design and Collect Survey Data
Collect survey data directly in the dashboard, providing information from participants on:
-
Their background and experience
-
The impact the project had on them
-
The quality of the project
Add
Information
Project managers add information about:
-
Project goals
-
Type of project
-
Target group/audience
-
Costs
-
(Expected) Impact
Impact
Reports
Instant Impact reports for each project make it easy to:
-
Understand how a project contributes to the impact goals
-
Report findings to funders, partners, and other stakeholders
-
Identify the success/ failure factors of projects
Program
Overviews
The program overview provides insight into:
-
How much each project contributes to your impact goals
-
An apples-to-apples comparison of projects' impact per dollar
-
Benchmarking with relevant projects and/or programs
