Tell Your Story While Charting Your Impact

December 2011

Your organization is committed to maximizing your impact and to telling the story of your progress in an accessible, concise way. People want to help you make a difference—through donations, volunteering, and more—but often struggle to find a succinct, consistent resource that clarifies what nonprofits want to achieve and what they have already accomplished.

Charting Impact responds to these needs. BBB Wise Giving Alliance, GuideStar USA, and Independent Sector developed Charting Impact as a common presentation that allows staff, boards, stakeholders, donors, volunteers, and others to work with and learn from each other.

Developed with input from nearly 200 organizations, this thoroughly tested framework focuses on enabling your organization to be more effective. It encourages strategic thinking about how your nonprofit or foundation will achieve its intended impact and helps you share concise information about your plans and progress with key stakeholders and the public.

Have you answered these five deceptively simple questions?

1. What is your organization aiming to accomplish?
2. What are your strategies for making this happen?
3. What are your organization's capabilities for doing this?
4. How will your organization know if you are making progress?
5. What have and haven't you accomplished so far?

Since Charting Impact launched in May, nearly 100 organizations have published their unique reports. Another 700 organizations have started the process of answering these questions. Now is the time to add your organization to this growing community of early adopters of Charting Impact.

As you get started, you might consider the following:

• Bring in staff from across your organization to help provide input from different perspectives as you answer the five Charting Impact questions.
• Gather existing documents ahead of time—including your strategic plan, annual report, program results, etc.—that you can refer to during the writing process.
• Aim for clear, concise, jargon-free language. Remember that you're writing for an external audience who may not know you very well.
• Think about specific examples or measurements you can include in your responses.

Additional guidance can be found at www.ChartingImpact.org. You can also to download and print a Discussion Copy of Charting Impact to use in your conversations and writing process. If you have questions, contact us at www.ChartingImpact.org/feedback.

© 2011, Charting Impact