After logging into your ImpactMapper account, you might wonder about the next steps to begin your analysis. You can start by creating a project—this is the first step in conducting your analysis.
You can create two types of projects in ImpactMapper - Grants-based and Standalone. Kindly click on the following topics below to know more about the difference between the two and the kinds of analysis you can do for each project:
Grants-based Project
You create this type of project when you want to use your organizational grant data in your analysis.
Depending on the nature and needs of an organization, organizational data can take many forms. Below are some examples:
If you are a grant-making entity - your organizational data could be your grants and grantee data.
If you are a capacity-building organization, your organizational data could be the names of your trainees or the training events you conducted.
If you are a network organization, your organizational data could be your members and their projects.
If you are an impact investor, your organizational data could be the startups you invested in and your portfolio investment.
NOTE:
You will NOT be able to create a grants-based project without importing your organizational data to ImpactMapper!
You can import your data by going to the
Organizational Datapage of the platform.
Types of analysis you can conduct in your grants-based project using your organizational data can be (but are not limited to):
Understanding the outcomes and impacts of your investments based on your theory of change, results framework, or strategic plan
Identifying additional support needed by your grantees or partners
Understanding how membership in your organization/network has helped your members
Capturing stories of change that can be attributed to your grants or training interventions or membership services or impact investments
NOTE:
You can check out the article, Abbreviated Guide to Using ImpactMapper for an overview of the basic features of ImpactMapper such as surveys, uploading a report, and tagging.
Organizational data is imported BEFORE you start any project and is stored in the
Organization Datapage of the platform.
In creating a Grants-based project, ENSURE that the organizational data you want to analyze is added via the
Project Datapage. This is explained in more detail in this article.
Standalone Project
A Standalone project is used when you do not need to upload or use preexisting organizational data (grantee, grants, partners, trainees, members, etc.) for your analysis.
Standalone projects are often used for survey projects for samples that are not in your organizational data or when you just want to start using the platform quickly.
In standalone projects, you have all of the features in a grants-based project except for the global map of funding and funding demographic breakdown table. You can conduct surveys, analyze text documents, save key quotes, and visualize trends through charts.
Types of analysis you can conduct in your standalone project can include (but are not limited to):
Research use, such as uploading reports, transcripts of interviews or focus groups and tagging them.
Evidence synthesis, uploading evaluation or research reports, and synthesizing and analyzing best practices and lessons learned across your programs.
Surveys not connected to grants or investments, such as staff satisfaction surveys, training surveys, partner, customer, or client feedback, etc.
In a nutshell:
Examples of grants-based projects users created
Building Equity and Alignment for Environmental Justice (BEA), a grant-making organization, has asked for ImpactMapper’s support to upload its grantee reports to the platform (via Reports tool). To understand the outcomes and impacts their grantees achieved, the reports are tagged based on the outcomes from their theory of change. Using the Charts tool of ImpactMapper, results are visualized and created into a report, which is then presented to their annual board, donor, and the community.
Women Moving Millions (WMM) is a network of high net-worth women philanthropists that have collectively invested over 1 billion USD in gender equality and women’s rights globally. With the help of the ImpactMapper consulting team, their organizational data (their members) were imported into ImpactMapper and an annual membership survey was conducted. The survey is aimed at tracking their members’ investment in women and girls and for WMM to understand the role the network has played in encouraging such investments year over year. All data was collected and analyzed in the platform; a public report was created based on the data collected and analyzed.
Women Leading and Influencing (WLI) is an Australian government initiative that provides development leadership offerings to Australia Awards scholars and alumni so they can champion positive change in the Pacific region. They have used ImpactMapper surveys and reports to gather information from their cohorts on how their leadership programs have contributed to their leadership skills.
Examples of standalone projects users created
Spotlight Initiative, a historic partnership and 500 million euro fund between the EU and UN to end violence against women and girls around the world, commissioned ImpactMapper to create Spotlight Initiative's Compendium of Innovative and Good Practices and Lessons Learned. The ImpactMapper consulting team uploaded 320 documents from country and regional programmes and tagged these documents for lessons learned, case studies, and best practices. The ImpactMapper team then produced the compendium from this analysis, which consists of 50 case studies across six outcome areas and 13 briefs across diverse themes.
Charge Incubator, an organization based in Oslo, engaged the ImpactMapper consulting team to conduct an impact assessment of their incubator program for startup companies. ImpactMapper uploaded and tagged interviews. ImpactMapper survey was also utilized and was sent to select companies and startup ecosystem actors for added data. The analysis resulted in this impact report.
Using the survey tool, ImpactMapper created the report, The Key to Change: Women’s Movement Building and the SDGs which details what happens when we invest in women, gender diversity, and gender equality from a longer-term and movement-building perspective. In this case, the survey was very useful due to its multilingual features and ability to tag, analyze, and visualize text responses in the survey. The survey was completed by organizations across 56 countries, in 6 languages, and was responded to by 217 women’s movement building organizations and 132 women’s rights organizations.
IKEA, utilized the survey for their customer feedback in their Glasgow stores. They also used the survey to gather policy makers’ impressions on their exhibits in the COP26 in Glasgow.