The Challenge
A results framework is only as useful as the reports written against it. When funding depends on outcomes, a partner that reports activities — trainings held, supplies delivered — leaves its funder unable to say what the money achieved.
The portfolio was large, multi-sector and spread across several states. Program teams and partners used frameworks that did not always line up with the office’s strategy, and partners’ experience varied widely: some had dedicated monitoring teams, while others were building a framework for the first time.
A review of the frameworks partners had already submitted showed the most common gaps. Outputs were written as outcomes. Indicators lacked baselines and targets. Progress reports were not tied to the framework’s indicators.
Measurement and impact accounting also risked becoming two separate projects: one to collect data, another to explain what it meant. The office wanted one system — and partners equipped to use it.
Our Solution
Measurement Systems
Evalueserve aligned frameworks and indicators to the office’s strategy, built data systems and dashboards for evidence-based decisions, and set up repositories and dashboards for learning across states.
Impact Accounting on Top
The office’s plausible contribution to national outcomes is assessed on the same indicator logic its partners report against, so the account and the reporting stay connected.
A Results-First Workshop
Across two cohorts, 129 partner and program staff from 52 organizations worked through the results chain in order — goal, primary outcome, intermediate outcomes, outputs, activities, then indicators — using the foundation’s own template definitions word for word. Each cohort’s first session built a framework; the second used one to report progress. Throughout, the work concentrated on three skills: telling outputs from outcomes, writing indicators with baselines and targets, and using the framework to report progress and correct course.
Learning by Doing
Mixed-organization tables of seven or eight worked on curated, anonymized material drawn from real frameworks, with the same task at every table and an output that could be scored. Experienced partners acted as peer facilitators, and foundation colleagues co-facilitated.
Built to Stick
Every organization left with a one-page scorecard and a check of its own framework due within three weeks. The foundation received a results note.
"The group activities made the results framework easier to understand … practical and engaging … well facilitated and participatory. "
Business Impact
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129 partner and program staff from 52 organizations
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Matched test scores rose from 75% to 91%
From 15.7 to 19.0 out of 21 for the 82 participants who sat both tests. The lowest-starting group gained the most, about 7 points.
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Measurement and impact accounting run as one system
What it does not claim? Test scores show what participants learned in the workshop. Whether partners’ reporting improves is what the follow-up will show.
What's Next
A follow-up 30–60 days after the workshop will check whether partners’ next progress reports use the framework. Its results will follow.
Talk to One of Our Experts
Get in touch today to find out about how Evalueserve can help you improve your processes, making you better, faster and more efficient.
Overview & Impact
A global foundation managing a multi-sector portfolio in West Africa needed to align partner reporting with national development outcomes and demonstrate funding impact. Evalueserve developed integrated measurement frameworks, data systems, and dashboards, while equipping partners to track outcomes, improve reporting, and support evidence-based decisions.