Social impact think tank New Philanthropy Capital (NPC) has launched a free online guide to help charities evaluate the impact of their systems change work.

This includes projects aimed at transforming the systems behind social and environmental challenges.

The Evaluating Systems Change guide is aimed at helping charities to “understand, evaluate and learn from systems change efforts”, according to NPC.

This is through a five step process for approaching evaluation, involving helping charities make informed choices about what to measure as well as how to gather evidence and use learning to improve their work.

This asks charities to:

• Set expectations
• Agree overall aims
• Identify evaluation questions
• Choose methods
• Plan approach

The guide is for charities and social enterprises, funders, those working in partnerships and policy makers.

“The overarching message of this guide is that evaluating systems change does not require a singular, prescriptive philosophy, nor a completely novel set of unique methods and tools But rather a partial shift – in expectations, aims, evaluation questions, methods, and/or approach,” say NPC researchers.

They add: “Working on systems change must inherently be collaborative, and there will no doubt be others who are grappling with the same evaluation challenges as you. Reach out to them, share knowledge and experiences – maybe even form a working group.”

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