Tips and Tools for Demonstrating Impact

Proving your work produces results is critical for gaining and keeping support. Once you’ve learned how to track and measure the lasting change your charity brings about, the next step is communicating your impact. That’s especially important in grant proposals.

These days, simply meeting a donor’s criteria often isn’t enough to win a grant, says Alex Saingchin, program director at the Common Counsel Foundation, a grant maker and adviser to philanthropists. Common Counsel reviews scores of applications for clients each grant cycle and looks “for organizations that are not only a good fit but actually can follow through on the different issues or goals that they’re working on,” he says in “Tips for Measuring and Conveying Impact.”

To boost your nonprofit’s chances of success, tailor proposals to different foundations and use creative ways to blend data and stories, Saingchin suggests.

Explore this collection for more tips and tools to help you convey impact – from identifying the metrics that matter the most to weaving them into stories that resonate with grant makers.