By Jess Horler, MEL Specialist, DataDrive2030
Change is constant and impacts on everything
Change is the only constant. Philanthropy operates in exceedingly challenging and unpredictable social conditions – today and arguably, always. The “polycrisis” – a web of climate disruption, inequality, war, and social fractures – makes it clear that the challenges we face are not isolated. They are interconnected, dynamic, and unpredictable.
This recognition is changing how we think about philanthropy itself. Funders are being asked to move beyond short-term projects and siloed grants, towards catalysing systems change to address the complex, interconnected problems of today more effectively.
However, funding differently necessitates measuring differently. Conventional monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) requirements, designed for isolated and predictable programmes, will not provide the data necessary to understand impact in this context. It’s no longer sufficient to measure for the sake of reporting – there are urgent questions around why, how and with whom we measure.
Why conventional measurement falls short
Traditional results-based frameworks, such as logical frameworks, are attractive because they offer clarity: predefined targets, neat indicators, and a sense of linear certainty (quantifiable inputs lead to quantifiable outcomes). Yet even within straightforward programme delivery, these approaches often fall short.
A lens reliant on predicting and counting is always too narrow. Local and global research consistently finds evidence of NPOs engaging in “performance theatre” to secure and maintain funding and designing distorted MEL systems that produce glamorous social impact reports rather than useful learning.
Consequently, programme teams lack on-the-ground data needed to be responsive to their communities and agile in their implementation. When funders emphasise easily quantifiable outcomes, they risk incentivising what is easiest to count, not the insights that matter most for effective programming.
These limitations are compounded when funders turn their attention to systems change. Transforming systems is non-linear, relational, and slow work. It requires attention to how interventions interact with broader contexts shaped by policy, economics, social norms, and historical inequalities. Conventional frameworks are poorly equipped to capture these dynamics. And without understanding the conditions that enable or obstruct change, funders risk drawing misleading conclusions about what is working, or not, and why.
Towards measurement that supports transformation
If philanthropy is serious about systems change, we need new ways of understanding impact that supports deep, transformative work. This doesn’t mean abandoning rigour – it requires reframing what counts as evidence and committing to aligned funding strategies.
Some shifts are already underway:
- From attribution to contribution and relational work: Single organisations rarely “cause” change, but can support the conditions that make it possible, particularly through partnership. A realistic and supportive approach means recognising that grantees cannot be accountable to fix all the ills of the world, and they cannot work alone. Grantees should thus be measured on their contributions to greater gains, as well as the strength of their networks.
- From counting numbers to tracking learning: Process- and learning-orientated outcomes are critical to support impact, necessitating the measurement of the ‘soft’ aspects of intervention, such as what organisations have learned and how they collaborate with others.
- From accountability upwards to accountability outwards: Organisations need not only be accountable to funders and governing bodies, but the communities they serve. This means including the community in what it defines as success, how this should be measured, and in reporting on progress.
- From extractive to participatory approaches: Grantees and their communities are not mere data factories churning out pre-defined social impact. They hold key insights into what change is needed and how to create it realistically. Transforming systems requires high levels of community inclusion and diverse perspectives in both grantmaking and programme design, as well as impact definition and measurement.
- From isolated results to contextualised outcomes: Programmes do not operate in a vacuum. Understanding programme outcomes, and working with grantees to improve their impact, requires that funders understand the broader conditions enabling or constraining positive social change – from policy environments to community dynamics. These conditions need to be adequately captured and communicated for sense-making.
Innovations funders can embrace
Numbers will always have their place in impact measurement, but they should be balanced with qualitative narratives, relational indicators, and cultural markers of wellbeing. Further, data should be interpreted collaboratively and in-context, which can mean convening “data parties” where communities, NPOs, funders and other key stakeholders interpret findings together. What matters is shifting away from extractive practices and towards shared sense-making.
Accountability is key, but MEL requirements need to reflect the realities of complex change. One such reframe is from measurement for control, to measurement for learning. Approaches such as Human Learning Systems and developmental evaluation show how monitoring can become a tool for adaptation rather than compliance. Instead of rigid targets, they emphasise cycles of reflection, real-time feedback, experimentation and curiosity about what is emerging.
To support community involvement in impact definition and measurement, participatory and qualitative techniques, like the Most Significant Change method, are useful for inviting communities to share what they see as the most meaningful changes in their lives, while outcome harvesting works backwards to historically trace both expected and unexpected results of significance. These participatory approaches remind us that impact is emergent and that those closest to the change are the best-placed to describe it.
Taken together, these shifts point to a simple but profound reorientation: measure less to prove and claim wins and more to improve and build collective understanding and paths forward.
A key tension in this reorientation is how funders understand their own impact. When monitoring relies in part on qualitative data and contextual evidence, it becomes difficult (and sometimes impossible) to consolidate grantee data into portfolio-wide metrics. In these cases, funders should resist the urge to impose uniform indicators on grantees. Instead, they can measure their own contribution in terms of what they directly control: how they design grants, support learning, build relationships, and create enabling conditions for long-term change. This requires a strategic shift – moving away from claiming programmatic outcomes as their own and toward assessing their operational and supportive roles. Doing so gives grantees the freedom to measure and report on programmes in ways that make sense for their contexts.
Six provocations for funders
To support ongoing reflection and changes in practice, funders can continuously ask of themselves a number of questions.
- On our impact: Are we claiming the work done by our grantees as our own? What do we actually do?
- On conditions for transformative change: Are we supporting and resourcing the slow, relational work of systems change, and not just quick fixes and surface wins?
- On accountability: Who do we expect grantees to be accountable to first: us, or their communities?
- On learning for effectiveness: Are we framing MEL as a system for learning, or only for reporting?
- On evidence: Do we value a diversity of metrics and data sources that speak to the context?
- On context: How well do we know and understand the systems and environments that shape grantees’ results?
From certainty to humility
To effectively tackle the complex problems of today and shift systems, the future of philanthropy is written in relationships: success will depend on trust between funders, NPOs and communities, encouragement and collaboration in experimentation, and ongoing support to learn rather than demonstrate. By rethinking what and how we measure, philanthropy can move beyond performance to become a true partner in lasting change.