NGO-IDEAs

The NGO-IDEAs "Impact Toolbox"

The key features of the NGO-IDEA "Impact Toolbox":

  • The Toolbox offers a combination of a small number of tools that are attuned to one another. They form a methodical whole but may also be applied individually to reduce complexity, if required.
  • The Toolbox is based on tools that many NGOs are well familiar with, and use. This enables community based organisations (CBOs) to use them independently without major consultancy effort.
  • The indicators for social change may be represented quantitatively. While this facilitates the aggregation of data, the survey results can also easily be disaggregated if required. For example, differentiation of impacts is not only possible according to sex, but also according to poverty groups or other social criteria that we wanted to look into.
  • These tools encourage awareness creation and reflection of self-effectivenesss, and demand steering decisions based on the continuous establishment of impacts. They can also be used in reporting, as need arises.

The NGO-IDEAs "Impact Toolbox" comprises four tools: PWR, SAGE, and PAG and PIAR. The unique feature of this tool is prevalence of an organic link with and between all the other tools.

Participatory Well-being Ranking [PWR]

PWR is a familiar tool taken from the Participatory Rapid Appraisal (PRA) context. This is already being used by a large number of NGOs. PWR clusters households according to well-being criteria which are identified by the CBO. It serves the purpose of poverty-oriented target group selection and assignment of impacts according to well-being or poverty criteria.

Situational Analysis and Goal Establishment [SAGE]

SAGE as a tool establishes changes among individuals and households. This tool sets an assumption that the people in the target group create their own vision of their future living conditions. The aim is to establish to what extent each member or each household has developed towards these targets as an outcome or impact of the CBO members' self-help activities or of the NGO's services.

Performance Appraisal of the Groups [PAG]

PAG establishes changes in groups. This tool is used to assess the performance of a CBO. It was derived from a rating format used by banks from India with the groups - albeit with other assessment criteria. In PAG, the NGO and the group agree on the criteria that the group's quality as a whole can be measured with, and hence how it changes as an outcome or impact of the CBO members' self-help activities or of the NGO's services.

Participatory Impact Analysis and Reflection - PIAR

PIAR serves an in-depth analysis of impacts. PIAR is the impact-analysis tool of the NGOs. It sets out from the methods of self-assessment of changes among individuals / households and in the group (SAGE and PAG), elaborating their results with the support of a number of additional elements used at different levels of PWR, SAGE, PAG. Here the NGOs can cull out the inferences from all the tools administered and attempt to analyse the causal links with reference to the areas where it intends to promote change.

To Download the Impact Toolbox: 
English (2 MB), please click here.
French (1,4 MB), please click here.
Spanish (1,4 MB), please click here