Why these direct impact cards?

Thu, 09/01/2022 - 12:58

0 comments

People and organisations engaged in social change and behaviour change processes, strategies and actions (including related to social norms) are often asked:

"Do they work?';

"What is their impact";

"What evidence is there for making a contribution to progress on national and local development goals";

"How do they contribute to the struggles to achieve the SDGs"

And, other, similar questions.

At the same time we are all seeking to both fund, sustain, expand and grow the social change and behaviour change action we are undertaking, and striving to ensure our learning and perspectives are more influential in development policy making be that at local, national, regional or global contexts.

There is a common feeling in our field of work that these two dynamics should be more closely linked. That the availability of more compelling and credible impact data would help facilitate expanded levels of funding success and policy engagement.

UNICEF wanted to take a fresh look at this issue. It asked The Communication Initiative to be involved.

The key driving principles for the work that resulted, and continues, were to identify impact data meeting two requirements:

a. Viewed by donors and policy makers as highly credible according to their understanding of what constitutes credibility

b. Supports everyone in our common field of work to review and plan their work in the light of highly credible impact data.

Please also see:

Selection criteria

Using these cards

Add new comment

Your Priorities, Opportunities and Challenges? Complete the SURVEY

Why the focus on direct impact data?

A common challenge from policy makers, funders, community members, people directly experiencing development issues, and governments is: Demonstrate your Impact. Prove that what you are doing works. The high quality, highly credible data presented on the cards below is designed to help you answer that question for your social change, behaviour change, community engagement, communication and media for development, strategy formulation, policy engagement and funding initiatives. At this link filter the research data to your specific interests and priorities

Why a playing cards design?

There is a physical pack of cards with this data (to get a copy please request through the comment form for any card). The card approach allows for easy identification and selection of relevant direct impact data in any context. For example if talking with a donor and you need to identify proof of impact say "take a look at the 7 of Hearts". Quick access can be provided to high-quality data for many areas of your work – funding, planning, policy, advocacy, community dialogue, training, partner engagement, and more. A card deck is also engaging, easy to use and share, a conversation starter, and a resource - and they are fun and different. So we kept that design for the online images as it can serve similar purposes.