Opening up impact

Across the impact economy, there is growing recognition that complex social and environmental challenges require systems change, not isolated interventions. Yet while organisations have invested heavily in understanding and measuring their impact, most of that knowledge remains locked behind organisational boundaries.

Foundations enjoy the privilege of sitting on a unique and valuable store of data… Opening up that data offers exciting benefits for wider civil society.

Anand Shukla, Chief Executive, Henry Smith Foundation

Opening up impact makes the case that open knowledge is not a “nice to have”, but a foundational condition for systems change. Drawing on NPC’s two decades of work at the heart of the impact economy, the report argues that openness can transform fragmented learning into shared infrastructure—enabling alignment, collaboration, and collective accountability.

The report introduces a practical framework for open impact, setting out what open knowledge looks like in practice, how it can be applied across the full cycle of impact work, and the role funders, investors and network organisations can play in shifting norms at scale.

Tris Lumley, Open for All Director, argues that knowledge is a collective asset, not an organisational possession. If impact organisations are serious about systems change, then open and shared knowledge must become the norm, not the exception.

Opening up impact sets out both the rational case and the moral case for openness and shows how shifting practice around knowledge could unlock greater alignment, learning and impact across the whole system.

Who this report is for

This report will be particularly useful for:

• Funders and investors seeking to enable systems change and collective impact
• Impact organisations looking to strengthen learning, collaboration and field-building
• Network and membership organisations aiming to shift practice across their ecosystems
• Policymakers and sector leaders interested in the infrastructure that underpins effective impact

Open For All

This report also introduces Open For All, NPC’s multi-year programme to support the impact economy to adopt open knowledge practices.

Through guidance, tools, partnerships and collaborative initiatives, Open For All aims to:

• Develop practical, usable approaches to open knowledge
• Support initiatives working at scale across places and themes
• Model what it means to work in the open, through transparent, inclusive practice

Find out more about our Open For All programme.