What is the IA Impact Tracker?

We’re helping organizations move beyond quantitative metrics like pageviews to assess their impact in their communities. The IA Impact Tracker is a customizable Google-based platform that organizes and displays an organization’s impact at the structural, community, and individual levels. Users (reporters, editors, development officers, etc.) provide data that feeds a visual, interactive, qualitative data set.

Who should use the IA Impact Tracker?

The IA Impact Tracker is useful for news organizations, nonprofits, and social change organizations that are interested in documenting real-world change as a result of their work. It's useful both as a starting point, as well as a place to centralize unstructured information that might already exist within an organization.

How do you define “impact?”

“Impact” is any change spurred by an organization’s work and that fulfills its mission. We define impact as the change to the status quo on the individual, community, and structural level. As a first step, it’s important to develop an impact framework with indicators that demonstrate that change. Not all indicators for organizations will be the same, but there will likely be commonalities among them. For example: 

• Structural impact: Was there change on an institutional level such as policy change or institutional action?

• Community/network impact: Did something happen within a community or a network, such as a protest or community meeting?

• Individual impact: Was the impact by or involving an individual? Did they take action or change their opinion?

• Media amplification: Did other news organizations, nonprofits, etc, cite/quote, amplify, localize, or feature the work and/or data reporting of your newsroom?

Why is the IA Impact Tracker useful?

We know that journalism plays a valuable role in communities, keeping audiences informed on issues vital to their lives. For newsrooms, philanthropies, and social change organizations, there are also concrete benefits to this work: 

• Reputation building: The IA Impact Tracker helps to categorize and organize achievements and real-world impact in order to demonstrate your value to your audience.

• Editorial workflow: The tool can help organize newsroom coverage of editorial content, shedding light on trends in impact stemming from your reporting and work.

• Institutional support: Grant applications and grant reporting often require documentation and measurement of demonstrated impact, and the IA Impact Tracker helps organize and present these qualitative data visually.

How do you use the IA Impact Tracker?

The IA Impact Tracker is a Google-based platform that has three components:

1. Users enter impact data using a simple Google form that takes less than a minute to complete.

2. A Google sheet serves as the impact database for all entries.

3. A Google Looker Studio visualizes the data, demonstrating trends and providing pathways for analysis. 

The Impact Tracker is a tool, but in order for this tool to be useful, it must be used in the context of a culture of impact and be integrated into organizational workflows to inform the important work being done.

Is there a cost to use the IA Impact Tracker tool?

The standard Impact Tracker tool is free for organizations to use and customize.

For a cost, Impact Architects also offers consulting support whereby we partner with organizations to help define impact for the organization in collaboration with staff, develop a customized impact framework, set up and refine the Google-based impact tracking system, and train staff on its usage. Get in touch with us if this is of interest.

Impact Architects also works with foundations and their grantees to develop custom impact frameworks, design Impact Trackers for grant reporting and documenting their outcomes, and provide capacity building support. Get in touch with us if this is of interest.

How was this tool developed?

This tool was previously housed at the Center for Investigative Reporting and developed by Impact Architects’ co-founder and principal, Lindsay Green-Barber, and acquired by Impact Architects in 2021.

Our new Google based platform is designed to be free, highly customizable, and allow for more integrations with other analytics and data platforms.

Where can I find the IA Impact Tracker?

Access the free Impact Tracker platform via the member signup below.

If you’re curious about how the Impact Tracker might work in your organization, we offer a free 30 minute consultation and demo of the platform, which you can sign up for here.