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Mission invisible?

Featured: Mission invisible - the value of single focused goals.
Workshop offers: Autumn e-learning and our new masterclass programme.
Sustaining impact: Part Two of our new guide included below!

Mission invisible

Imagine if there were a simple way to make decisions in a complex world. Imagine being able to manage your limited capacity. And wouldn't it be great if your whole team focused on the same thing?

The good news

You already have all this.

The bad news

Is it working?

The value of single focused goals

You already have a clear, focused goal. It's at the top of your strategic plan: your vision, mission or aim. It's the reason your organisation exists. You spent time developing and defining it. Which was worth it, because you use it every day to make decisions, manage capacity and stay focused. Don't you?

How much time do you spend doing things that don't contribute to your mission? As Stephen Covey said, 'The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.'
Discover the value of single focused goals - and how ours led us to the hardest, most important six months of the company's life.

Workshop offers - sustaining the sector in recovery

A jotter and pencil

Join our next e-learning cohort

Starting in October: our final Lasting Difference e-learning programme of 2020.
Learn in your own time, with participatory activities, collaborative learning and exclusive resources. Additional live online sessions, two hours free 1:1 support, all for a new reduced course fee of £50+Vat (previously £100).
Use the link below to find out more or book now. (Those who have already booked, watch this space, well be back in touch with more information soon!)
E-learning programme: download all you need to know about joining the next cohort here.
An apple drawn using the symbol for infinity

Lasting Difference masterclasses

Our new programme is proving popular, with all three sessions already having good viable numbers, guaranteeing lively, engaging learning.

The masterclasses stand alone but also form a coherent whole, building on core Lasting Difference concepts with a Covid-specific outlook:
1. Understanding sustainability in a recovering world – Principles and practices of sustaining your work in a post-pandemic world. Features a special guest input which we'll tell you more about very soon!
2. Developing the five capabilities of sustainable organisations.
3. Following the exit signs – Exit strategies and sustainable impact.
Autumn masterclasses with reduced rates for standalone workshops or the whole series. Download details and booking information here.
Lasting leadership: succession, empowerment, equality

Sustainable leadership

Our partnership with ACOSVO continues with two new Lasting Leadership masterclasses. Vital topics, more relevant than ever:
1. Lateral leadership: sharing ownership, autonomy, and accountability regardless of roles or hierarchy.
2. Attracting emerging leaders and addressing leadership equality and diversity.
Information and bookings via ACOSVO (or click the course titles for direct links to Eventbrite)

Sustainable impact

Part 2 of 7:
The long term benefits of support

In the first article of this series, we identified the 7 Domains of Sustainable Impact - the key ways in which you can make a lasting difference. Each week, we explore a new domain. Today, it's about ensuring the people or issues you serve experience the long term benefits of support.

For ease of reading, you can also view the whole article online.
Provocations:
  • What difference do you want to make?
  • What difference do you really make? Who says?
  • What evidence is there that your model works?
Outcome-based planning and evaluation have been the only show in town for non-profit organisations (and their funders) for the last 20 years. But lots of organisations are still unclear about the difference they actually make. This is a problem.
If you want to make a lasting difference to the people or issues you support, first you have to make a difference.


First-order outcomes: effectiveness and alleviation (give someone a fish...)

Most organisations focus on the immediate difference they want to make. This is understandable, as these are the outcomes that can be most easily achieved (and measured), either in a short-term intervention or as the first steps in a longer-term ‘theory of change’. Things like:
  • Increased awareness (e.g. of issues, topics, support)
  • Improved access (e.g. to rights, support, information)
  • Improved resources (e.g. better information, more informed decisions)
  • Improved partnerships (e.g. more joined-up working with other services)
Person-centred or asset-based approaches might also have appropriate open-ended outcomes like people being more able to articulate and achieve their own goals.
 
First-order outcomes like those above are important. And in some cases, they might be all that can be achieved – telephone helplines for instance might only have short, one-off contacts with people, so they need realistic outcomes to reflect that.
 
But for outcomes to be sustained, something else needs to change. Capacity needs to be built, either in people, organisations or the systems they are part of. We’ll think more about organisations and systems in the next five domains. For now, the second order of outcomes relates to increased capacity and resilience in the longer term.
 

Second order outcomes: empowerment and prevention (show them how to fish...)

First of all, let’s be clear that there are some situations in which people or issues will always need support. Some people need lifelong care. Complex, intractable issues like inequality and climate change won’t solve themselves. We should also note that nothing in the known universe is self-sustaining! [You can read more about the ‘Myth of Perpetual Motion’ in the free Lasting Difference toolkit and more fully in my more expensive book!].
 
Nevertheless, there’s usually something we can do (and ethically, there’s often something we must do) to ensure our impact is sustained after our input comes to an end. Things like:
 
People…
  • Having increased resilience, problem-solving skills and resources for life (e.g. self-management skills, self-advocacy).       
  • Having increased independence (with or without ongoing support).
  • Being better connected (e.g. with supportive peers or community life).
  • Having the skills and motivation to help others (e.g. youth services are often sustained by former participants coming back as volunteers).
  • Having increased ownership of an issue (e.g. a conservation charity can only install and monitor so many bat boxes, but it can equip networks of supporters to help).
Second-order outcomes have a multiplier effect. They build people’s capacity to help themselves and others. For example, improving children’s lives by helping families to develop parenting skills; improving community capacity by training volunteer trainers; increasing skills by developing peer researchers and community activism.
 

Prevention
Second-order outcomes help to prevent future problems. For example, Community Development approaches ask whether it is more effective to pull drowning people out of the river (a first-order intervention, alleviating an immediate need) or to go upstream and build a bridge (a second-order intervention, preventing future needs from arising).
 
Very importantly, upstream second-order outcomes are about improving (and building the capacity of) services, organisations and systems. We’ll explore these domains in future articles:
  • Other organisations being more able to respond to need and take a lead on topics.
  • Policy and policy makers responding to evidence of changing needs.
  • Communities being better informed, connected and equipped.
Second order outcomes and funding
Capacity building and prevention haven’t traditionally been looked on favourably by funders, who typically prioritised direct, first-order interventions that can be delivered and measured within short-term funding periods.

But the challenges we face in society are ever more complex and the resources we have to address them are ever scarcer.
Second-order outcomes are the only way to achieve sustainable impact with sustainable resources.   
 
Conclusion
Second-order outcomes are about ensuring things have a life after you leave. As the old saying goes, give someone a fish and you feed them for a day; show them how to fish and you feed them for life.
 
Note on measurement
Many organisations struggle to measure outcomes, often for good reason: cause and effect are often unclear and proxy indicators don’t give a complete picture. However lots of help is available with making sense of evaluation, including measuring prevention and
capacity building. There’s no reason to let measurement get in the way of achievement.

This takes us back to the first domain of sustainable impact: being valuable without being precious. What could you achieve if you let go of the need to take credit or claim attribution?
Our focus for the rest of August is on Lasting Leadership. In the next edition:
  • More free resources: delegation and time management tools.
  • Sustainable Impact Part Three: Services
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