Kevin Munday, Chief Executive, City Year UK

My tip for social entrepreneurs about communicating your impact is firstly, to know what impact you're trying to achieve. Have a really clear theory of change, target population, set of outcomes that you're working to.

Secondly, get your measurement strategies in place. Make sure you're recording all of the things that's going to show the difference that you're going to make.

And then when you come to communicating it, you can do that in all sorts of interesting ways. Perhaps an infographic, a written report, or an event where your supporters can come along and hear about your work. 

When talking about the difference that your initiative is making it's helpful to have some of the short-term impacts, the real changes that you're making in beneficiaries' lives, but also some of the longer-term impacts that you might see, sometimes taking place a while after beneficiaries have completed the program.

By being able to articulate those differences supporters can start to see the bigger change that your initiative can potentially have. And you can then start to even monetize those by talking about the savings that might exist in a community or more widely as a result of that difference.

In my experience, most supporters want a mix of data and stories. It's important to have a few key performance indicators where you can show you've really moved the needle, and that will show that your work is making a difference. But at the same time, not everyone is motivated by numbers. So also use stories of your beneficiaries to hammer home what that impact looks like in real-world practice.

Zoya Shabir Siddiqui, Development and Partnerships Manager, Acumen

Some of the ways that social entrepreneurs could potentially showcase their impact to their partners, the most obvious aspect would be showcasing clear metrics that have been predetermined.

Depending on resources, possibly third-party evaluations, sometimes having that independent perspective is powerful as well to validate the work that's been done.

Social entrepreneurs who are resource-constrained can include funding for a third-party evaluator as part of their ask to partners because having the independent evaluation, the testimonials from a third party, really adds to the robustness of the work that's being done and validates the impact as well.

Key takeaways 

• Define, measure and communicate the impact you are working to achieve

• Highlight both short-term and long-term impacts

• Combine data and stories to showcase your impact

• Validate your impact with a third part