With more than 11 years of experience within the NGO sector, I have gained a lot of experience in implementing new technology and exploring what actually constitutes 'impact'. My focus in recent years has shifted to measuring impact through 'Programme Monitoring Evaluation and Learning' (PMEL or MEAL).

I think it's cool to organise roundtable events, where professionals from our collaborating organisations share insights and exchange experiences. For instance, I have facilitated a 'Masterclass' a few times, in collaboration with senior consultants and clients with experience in implementing solutions at different NGOs.

This particular Masterclass will cover Grants Making, Programme Management and Monitoring Evaluation and Learning, exploring and discussing tools and solutions. It will cover various solution approaches based on the Salesforce Platform.

Experiment

During our Tech for Nonprofits event on 28 September, we conducted an experiment. I invited some IT managers to a discussion with our experts, using our internal PME Selection Tool. That turned into a fascinating discussion and tasted like more, which is why we are already planning our third Masterclass!

Setting

What makes the Masterclass effective is the small setting of 6 to 8 people, creating focused conversations that prove to be extremely valuable for all parties. 

The session delivers mutual benefits. IT managers get a real 'master class' from experienced consultants, with insights and solutions to their challenges. In turn, as TwoPurpose, we gain insights into our customers' challenges, deeper than in typical one-to-one conversations. Sharing experiences between organisations highlights common challenges such as user acceptance, creating valuable insights.

The effect of impact

We think NGOs should increasingly strive for reliable data. With the aim that the organisation can be transparent throughout the process, all data are captured in an accessible IT platform. With this, processes support scaling up the desired impact and monitoring and evaluation are carried out in real time. This is what a modern platform like Salesforce enables. As consultants, we see that making this happen is not easy; there are many hurdles to overcome, such as organisational alignment, senior management vision, the tension between 'supply and demand' or 'business and IT', security, access to online and external tools and more. But we know that today IT no longer needs to be a bottleneck, quite the contrary: it is a facilitator to generate more impact!