Inspiring Impact launch new guides for Third Sector
Inspiring Impact, of which Building Change Trust is the Northern Ireland partner, has launched the UK’s first ever set of guidelines setting out what good impact practice looks like.
The Code of Good Impact Practice, produced by Inspiring Impact member NCVO, was developed through a sector-wide consultation which attracted 130 responses and the input of a working group of 17 organisations.
Inspiring Impact also launched the Funders’ Principles and Drivers of Good Impact Practice report, developed by the Funders for Impact Working Group and facilitated by the Association of Charitable Foundations(ACF).
Mirroring the Code of Good Impact Practice the Funder Principles aim to help funders think about their impact, and how they can support the people and organisations they fund to do so too.
The Code of Good Impact Practice is designed to provide broad guidelines that can help all types of voluntary organisation to focus on good impact practice—the activities that an organisation does to focus on the difference that it makes in the form of planning, managing, measuring and reviewing impact.
The report expands on a number of principles including a description of what ‘good’ looks like, an explanation of why it’s important, ideas for how it can be applied in practice and is intended to help charities, funders and commissioners form appropriate understandings of what good impact practice looks like.
As the Northern Ireland partner in the Inspiring Impact Programme, the Trust has been working over the past year to produce a development plan for Inspiring Impact in Northern Ireland.
This work, done through a partnership with CENI, is now drawing to a close and the Trust will shortly be launching a 3-5 year development plan for Inspiring Impact here following consideration at the Trust’s June Board meeting.
Nigel McKinney the Trust Administrator said: “As Inspiring Impact rounds off its first year with the launch of these tools which have been developed by the sector, for the sector, it’s fitting that we consider how we can enable use of these tools across the community and voluntary sector in Northern Ireland.
“Inspiring Impact is taking a holistic approach to improving impact practice across the whole of the third sector, we’ve also been taking that approach with the development of our plan for Northern Ireland both through our strategic partnership with CENI and as we’ve had support from a broad based advisory group representing various stakeholders including the sector, government and independent funders.
“The challenge now is to make best use of these new products in an NI context and we are confident that our ambitious plan will enable that to happen”.