PWSA UK Impact Dashboard
How our dynamic impact dashboard is helping one small but mighty charity to plan, report and develop
The Prader-Willi Syndrome Association UK (PWSA UK) supports people living with this rare genetic disorder and their families, to help them manage the complexities of the condition.
PWSA UK wanted to have access to their Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) data in real time to get a comprehensive picture of the outcomes their activities contribute to. They want to improve their impact and track the results of the adjustments they make – and our impact dashboard is helping them to do just that!
The Challenge
“We want to be able to have this information over time. A single snapshot or periodic snapshots don’t give us the insight about what is going up and what is going down. Having that will lead us to a better understanding of our impact, especially as we can segment data by timeframe and by the different groups we work with.“
JACKIE LODGE
Chief Executive at PWSA UK
The Solution
Having already established the outcomes that the charity is working towards, we worked with the team at PWSA UK to identify their Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and the sorts of things they’d like to find out through the dashboard. Based on this, we adjusted the data collection toolkit that had been developed for the Impact Report and developed a user-friendly and dynamic impact dashboard that summarises and visually illustrates data from PWSA UK’s M&E tools.
The Result
All M&E data in one place
The PWSA UK team now have all their M&E data, quantitative and qualitative, in one place that’s easy to navigate – with simplified demographic categories, automated visuals and qualitative comment categorised by theme, meaning outputs no longer need to be pulled together manually.
Seeing all their data reassures the team that the organisation is making a difference – and it also frees up staff time that used to go into report writing. Additional quarterly narrative reports summarising dashboard data give the team an initial analysis and recommendations for improvement.
Using data to improve delivery in real time
The Impact Dashboard also helps the team spot trends in their data, make evidence-based decisions in response, and track the impact of the changes they make. In practice, this has looked like:
- Geographic reach and outreach planning – The dashboard’s visual map of the people they support is helping the team show their geographic reach more clearly, and identify where they need to do more to reach those who need support – whether that’s connecting with clinics and health professionals, running events, or contacting people directly.
- Identifying community needs to respond to – Feedback in the dashboard is helping PWSA UK identify which services need rethinking to make a bigger difference – for example, to better address loneliness among people with PWS – and where there are gaps the team can respond to through influencing local providers, such as access to respite care.
- Improving data collection – The dashboard has helped the team spot gaps in their data and trial new ways of gathering feedback. For example, lower survey response rates from adults with PWS led the team to invest more time on their monthly focus group with adults.
- Tracking what’s working – Trend charts and filters let the team see how wellbeing and isolation scores shift alongside different events and training courses, informing decisions about frequency, attendance and geographic spread. The same approach helped them spot – and address – a dip in feedback from one training course, then track the improvement once changes were made.
Storytelling and communications fuel
The numbers and the community feedback in the Impact Dashboard are increasingly feeding PWSA UK’s communications – shaping copy for promoting events and annual reporting, and “you said, we did” updates that were welcomed by the PWSA UK community.
“The biggest change has been the cultural change to becoming a learning organisation. It’s been gradual, but it’s really sped up with the impact dashboard because it’s given us a more comprehensive view of the feedback from the people we support. We can see why we need to change, to be responsive to the needs of our community.”
Jackie Lodge, Chief Executive at PWSA UK
“The team at Insley Consulting are easy, flexible, engaged and give you good feedback and tips. They don’t just give us the M&E Framework and tools; they give us guidance on how to actually implement them. It really comes across that Emma knows what it’s like to manage a charity. Her approach is realistic, pragmatic, hands-on practical. She’s fun as well!”
JACKIE LODGE
Chief Executive at PWSA UK
Further Reading
To find out more about PWSA UK’s impact, take a look at their Impact Reports.