4 questions to ask when building an impact dashboard

At NPC, we help organisations make sense of their data. One of the ways we are achieving this is through impact dashboards.

We recently helped two UK health charities build impact dashboards. We’re committed to always sharing what we learn from our consulting work, so we reflected on what worked and came up with 4 questions you need to ask yourself before creating your own impact dashboard:

Where are you on your impact journey? What’s your main aim – reporting or learning? How will you collect and manage the data? Who will maintain and update the dashboard?

What is an impact dashboard? How can it help you?

A dashboard collects and displays data in one place, to show you how your organisation is performing. An impact dashboard focuses on data that shows the difference you make and how you achieve your goals.

The data is normally imported from other platforms including Google Analytics, CRM systems, survey platforms, and Microsoft Excel. It’s then displayed in a way where it’s easy to quickly judge progress – we used Microsoft Power BI data visualisation software for our recent clients.

How can it help? An impact dashboard can help you:

• reflect on what’s working well, and where you need to improve
• make strategic decisions about where to invest time and resources
• demonstrate impact in an easy-to-understand format
• save time by automating data visualisations and analysis for easy reporting, internally or externally
• interact with data and explore findings to learn as a team.

Impact dashboards can definitely help organisations increase their impact. But creating them can be a daunting prospect. Based on our recent work creating impact dashboards, here are 5 key questions to ask yourself before getting started.

Where are you on your impact journey?

Impact dashboards work best when they are connected to your theory of change. Your theory of change identifies the key ways you make a difference, and the dashboard tracks data that shows that impact. In other words, there is a sequence for creating a dashboard: the theory of change should come first.

So, before you start creating a dashboard, it’s worth reflecting on how confident you’re in your theory of change and your measurement framework. Do you know what you want to measure? Do you know how to do it?

If you’re just getting started with measurement or theory of change, it might be better to wait to create a dashboard. If you’re in this earlier phase and need help moving forward, NPC is here to support you.

What’s your main aim – reporting or learning?

There are different types of dashboards with different uses.

It’s up to you how you’d like to use your dashboard. Is your top priority to demonstrate impact for external reporting or to explore data support internal learning?

Your primary objective will shape how you design your dashboard.

For example, if you’re interested in demonstrating impact to stakeholders who are not familiar with the data you collect, then design and visuals are going to be important to make sure they can take in the information easily. (In this scenario, we’d recommend a summary and commentary as well.)

How will you collect and manage the data?

There’s always a limited amount of time and resources to collect data. You should be realistic about what is feasible to collect before starting a dashboard.

Are you able to collect enough survey responses from your service users? How can you leverage national statistics and secondary data sources in your data collection?

Ultimately, your dashboard is only as good as the data behind it. Creating processes for data collection activities is as important as building your dashboard.

You should consider how you’re going to manage your data: Who will be responsible for data collection activities? How often you will review the data sources? Where will the data be stored?

Having clear timelines and responsibilities will help you in this process

Who will maintain and update the dashboard?

Data connections are susceptible to breaking over time. Also, dashboards should evolve and improve based on user feedback. Either way, creating an impact dashboard that works isn’t a one-time activity.

Having in-house resources to manage the dashboard and update it is crucial to getting the most out of your tool.

You may also consider working with external stakeholders, like NPC, to help manage your dashboard.

Conclusion – an iterative process

Asking these questions at the start should help you develop an impact dashboard that works.

But remember, this is an iterative process. It requires buy-in across different levels of the organisation. Staff collecting, reporting, and reviewing data will be motivated if they understand how this tool can help them achieve both their goals and the organisation’s goals.

Here at NPC, we are excited to help organisations in their journeys to make sense of the data they collect. Dashboards are one of many ways we do this. If you’re interested in learning more about how we can help you, get in touch using the form below.