Impact Compass

We start by defining the change your organisation exists to create. The audiences you need to reach, the behaviours you want to shift, and the outcomes that would tell you something has genuinely changed. Expressed as a single, plain-English statement specific enough to guide every decision that follows.

With the impact defined, we turn to the website’s role. What can this platform realistically do to reach those audiences and support those shifts? Not everything a website can do is worth doing. This compass point is about focus – identifying the most credible and meaningful ways the site can contribute, within honest boundaries.

Every project has blockers and enablers – whether that’s organisational realities, content gaps, technical constraints or capacity questions. This compass point surfaces them early, so nothing derails the work later. And accessibility and sustainability are considered here as non-negotiables.

We distinguish between outputs (what the website produces), outcomes (what changes in behaviour or capability as a result), and impact (the real-world difference that creates). Outcome and impact measurement is notoriously difficult — often playing out over longer timeframes than any web project can track alone. But understanding that distinction matters. We work with our partners to ensure measurement is considered and built in from the start, so that as evidence emerges over time, there’s a framework in place to capture it.