In the Idea and Impact sections of our application forms, we ask you to tell us about the outcomes you expect to result from your grant project, and how you will measure them. Identifying and measuring outcomes is not everyone’s comfort zone and can sometimes feel confusing. Below are some definitions and explanations of the key concepts that may help you along the way.
Outcomes
Outcomes are the changes or benefits you expect to occur because of your activities. To clarify your intended outcomes, consider 2 things:
- Who will experience the change or benefit? It might be your organisation, individual participants, your audience, the wider community or a specific group in the community.
- What will change or improve for them, how will they benefit because of the project?
Often outcomes can be framed as an increase or decrease in any of the following:
- People’s skills, knowledge, confidence, motivation, attitudes, or opportunities. These are generally immediate or short-term outcomes that can be achieved as a direct result of the project activities, within the project timeframe.
- People’s actions or behaviour i.e. doing something new, different or better. Along with organisation-level changes – such as policy, capacity or resources – these are generally intermediate or medium-term outcomes that can sometimes be achieved within a project timeframe, or may need more time to unfold.
- Bigger changes such as people’s social, financial, or health status, and broader societal, environmental, technological or physical improvements. These are generally long-term outcomes, and often are not the direct result of project activities, but ‘ripple effects’ occurring over months or years.
Objectives
The CBF has defined objectives for each grant category. These objectives are like overarching goals, what CBF funding aims to help the sector achieve.
Applicants need to show how the intended outcomes of their project align with or help contribute to these grant category objectives. See our Outcomes and measures ideas for a handy list of common types of project outcomes, grouped under CBF Content and Development & Operations grant category objectives, that may help with thinking through your project outcomes and alignment.
Further information about the grant category objectives can be found here:
Measures
A measure is something we can observe or count to see whether we are making progress towards a particular outcome. Measures quantify the extent to which outcomes are occurring or ‘how much’ an outcome has been achieved.
Applicants need to identify a suitable measure for each of the intended outcomes they nominate. If your grant is successful, the outcomes and measures will form part of the reporting requirements, so it’s important to choose measures that are right for your project.
Measures work best when they:
- Clearly relate to the outcome
- Identify a specific unit of measurement eg. number of people / episodes / events or partners, $ of income, % of survey responses etc.
- Have been tested or are commonly used
- Are used sparingly – you are much better off to track one good reliable measure for an outcome, than multiple vague or impractical measures
Not all outcomes can be measured in the same way, so you will need to identify different types of measures to suit each specific outcome you have nominated. These handy resources share some standard measures that work well for many common grant outcomes, and can be used or adapted to suit different types of projects.
Targets
Targets go hand in hand with measuring and quantifying outcomes. They are specific numerical goals you will aim for ie. ‘how much’ of the outcome you want to achieve or to what level. For example, if your outcome is to increase the number of volunteers – how many do you want to end up with? That’s your target.
Applicants need to set a target for each outcome measure ie. an estimated total result you’ll aim to reach by the end of your project. Like outcomes and measures, you will report on how you’re progressing against each target come reporting time – so make them realistic and achievable.
Data collection methods
This is the evidence used to measure an outcome and demonstrate your progress or results. How will you document, observe, or gather feedback on your measure to show whether the outcome is being achieved?
Having data to back up your results makes them more compelling. It gives you confidence to share and celebrate your successes, or take action on any areas for improvement.
Some common data collection methods include listener/platform analytics, attendance records, volunteer or membership databases, program documents, surveys, financial reports, and more. A data collection method is usually very closely linked to the measure, for example:
- If a measure is the amount of sponsorship income, the data collection method may be financial records or reports detailing income sources
- For a measure of volunteer feedback, the data collection method may be a specific question in the organisation’s annual volunteer survey, or a short survey to specifically gather feedback on this project
Think about how you’ll obtain the data and document it for each of your measures, and from whom – can you actually do it? If not, you may need to consider whether there is a more practical measure or if the outcome needs to be reconsidered.
Want to know more?
Our Grants Support Team are here to help. Contact us if you’d like to discuss your ideas for outcomes and measures that suit your project, or get some feedback on your draft.
If you haven’t already, we recommend checking out our Outcomes and measures ideas for Content and Development & Operations grants.
For more in-depth advice about evaluating project outcomes, visit www.ourcommunity.com.au/evaluation.