Ali Somers, Co-Founder, Apples & Honey Nightingale Nursery facilitated a workshop to look at how to measure your impact of intergenerational projects at GWT's National Conference on Wed 6th March 2019.

1. Measuring the impact of your
intergenerational project
Dr Ali Somers
Co-Founder, Apples and Honey Nightingale CIC
www.applesandhoneynightingale.com
Associate Lecturer,
Institute for Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship
Goldsmiths College, University of London
www.gold.ac.uk/icce
@AliSomersAHNalisomers1@gmail.com

2. • To understand different approaches to measuring
the impact of intergenerational projects
• To consider which methods might be best for
your project or intervention
• To begin mapping the impact of your project or
intervention
• To think about how we can work together to
develop collective indicators, in order to bridge
some of the gaps that exist in our knowledge
• To learn from each other what works and what
doesn’t
Objectives for today’s session
@AliSomersAHN

3. • What does it mean to work
‘intergenerationally’?
• What are some common objectives?
• What are the most frequently used age
categories? (How should we think about how
to group ages?- to what end?)
• Let’s use the examples from our own work and
go around the room
Unpacking ‘intergenerational’ projects
@AliSomersAHN

4. • Why do we need to measure our impact?
• Resources are scarce, we need to be sure we are using
them efficiently
• Stakeholders want to know more to increase
accountability and trust
• To learn from what works and what does not
• To attract support from investors (whether they be public,
private, or third sector investors)
• To persuade others to begin similar initiatives
• Why else might we need to undertake this work?
• How ‘precise’ do we need to be?
• ‘Materiality’
• What do you think?
Drivers to measuring impact

5. Who within our projects/initiatives should be leading this
work?
How ‘skilled’ do we have to be to do this?
Is what we do similar or different?
Where are there common themes that emerge, and
where is the boundary for what we do that is different/
unique to just us?
Where do our stories of change begin and end?
What is the unit of change we wish to measure?
Individual, cohort, community, society?
Drivers to measuring impact
@AliSomersAHN

6. What
‘problem’ are
we truing to
solve?
What
intervention
are we going
to design and
deliver to
solve that
problem?
Run our
intervention
and record
what
happened…
What have we
learned?
Feed learning
into how we
run our
intervention
again
How do we
know this is a
problem?
Who is it a
problem for?
Who are the
stakeholders
affected by
this problem?
What
resources do
we need to do
this
intervention?
(activities,
skilled people,
materials)
What
indicators will
we look for to
see if change
has occurred?
What data
will we use
and how we
will collect
this
information?
Has what we
learned
changed how
we might do
things/ run
our
intervention?
Share our
learning with
stakehodlers
Theory of change impact map
@AliSomersAHN

7. What
‘problem’ are
we truing to
solve?
What
intervention
are we going
to design and
deliver to
solve that
problem?
Run our
intervention
and record
what
happened…
What have we
learned?
Feed learning
into how we
run our
intervention
again
How do we
know this is a
problem?
Who is it a
problem for?
Who are the
stakeholders
affected by
this problem?
What
resources do
we need to do
this
intervention?
(activities,
skilled people,
materials)
What
indicators will
we look for to
see if change
has occurred?
What data
will we use
and how we
will collect
this
information?
Has what we
learned
changed how
we might do
things/ run
our
intervention?
Share our
learning with
stakehodlers
Now it’s your turn to complete this!

8. •What ‘problem’ are you trying to solve?
•How do we ‘know’ this is a problem?
•Who is it a problem for?
•Who are the stakeholders affected by this
problem?
Step one: Identifying the problem
@AliSomersAHN

9. •What intervention are we going to design
and deliver to solve that problem?
•Do you run more than one type of
activity/intervention?
•What resources are needed for this to
run? (equipment, materials, staff,
expertise, space, participants…)
Step two: Mapping our interventions

10. • All of us have hypotheses about what we think
will happen when we design and deliver an
intergenerational programme
• Within these are hidden and explicit
assumptions
• We need to be clear about all of this so we
understand what cause and effect chain we are
putting into practice
• If we are not clear, it becomes harder to measure
the impact
• Example: We want our children to be thinner,
we make school dinners healthier, our children
remain obese…
• Any examples from your own experience?
Step three: Hypotheses and assumptions

11. Step four: Cause and effect chain
We are going
to do x. (We
expect Y to
happen as a
result)
X took place.
We measure
what
happened.
Y occurred,
but so did Z.
(Is Y a good
thing? Did
we expect Y
to happen?
What do we
think about
Z?

12. • Why did you begin your intervention?
• Do you have the same assumptions as those on
your team? What are they?
• How do we ‘know’ what we ‘know”?
• Is there anything we have overlooked?
• If the intervention does not deliver what we
expect it to, is it a failure? Or could it be even
more of a success?
• Are your participants able to tell you about their
experiences?
• Triangulating data explained
Step five: Uncovering our assumptions

13. •What data do we have to collect
already?
•What information would be useful
to have?
•How could we achieve this?
•Examples?
Step five: Selecting indicators
@AliSomersAHN

14. Example from AHN- using existing literature to fact find

15. Example from AHN- impact map

16. Let’s brainstorm what this would look like for the
nursery children….

17. • What methods are most appropriate for our
participant groups?
• Observational
• Survey data
• Interview data
• Other metrics? Regular assessments (health,
education)
• What information could we share across
sectors/spheres, or geographically?
Data collection methods

18. • Work first individually on worksheets
• Next we will get into small groups to share
• Feedback as a group
• What have we learned?
• What can we put into practice?
• What three steps can we each commit to do once
we leave the conference today?
• How will we share our impact stories with each
other next?
Thank you for your time!
Your turn!
@AliSomersAHN