Making impact measurement meaningful – learnings from the past 10 years
Impact measurement. Monitoring and evaluation. These terms can sound like the formal paperwork you reluctantly add to the bottom of your to-do list—burdensome, detached, maybe even a little bureaucratic. We get it.
But here’s the thing: impact measurement can be magical.
When it’s done well, it can spark real transformation. It can fuel purpose, deepen team connection, strengthen partnerships, and crucially, elevate the voices of the people and communities you serve. At its best, impact measurement isn’t just a tool—it’s a mirror, a compass, and a bridge.
At Akou, we’ve spent the past decade reimagining how we measure impact. We don’t see it as a box-ticking exercise, but as a creative, inclusive and human-centered process that gets to the heart of why we do what we do which helps organisations like yours to prove the good you do. Every project is an opportunity to push boundaries, experiment with new approaches, and most importantly—learn.
What we think is important
Over the last 10+ years, we’ve learned a lot about what makes impact measurement meaningful:
1. Truth-telling requires trust
Exploring your organisation from the inside out takes more than time—it takes courage and honesty. The best evaluations are built on relationships of trust, where people feel safe to share not just what’s working, but what’s not. That’s where real transformation happens.
2.Participatory approaches change everything
Over a decade we’ve worked with bold, committed teams across sectors who have embraced participatory evaluation. Together, we’ve embedded creative, inclusive processes that invite users, staff, and stakeholders to co-design the journey. The result? Richer insights, deeper accountability, and more meaningful change.
3. Balance creativity with practicality
Yes, we love experimenting and pushing creative boundaries. But we also know that our work has to be useful. That’s why we constantly refine our methods to ensure they’re practical, adaptable, and easy to implement—tools you can actually use. We try hard to work with existing information wherever possible, maximising the use of already held data and insights.
4. Upskilling creates lasting value
We don’t just deliver insights—we build capacity. Our approach ensures teams and communities can:
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- Platform underrepresented voices
- Gather and use data with confidence
- Celebrate achievements and impact
- Strengthen their case for funding
- Design social value strategies that stick
How have we utilised these learnings?
We’ve used these lessons to inform and shape the way we work with clients and our approach to impact measurement across our projects.
Building Trust with Participatory Approaches
In 2024, we started collaborating with Walcot Foundation and Liberating Knowledge (link) to reimagine how to distribute grant funding. With a group of Lambeth based service providers and entrepreneurs we’ve co-designed a new programme that focuses on care, connection and celebration. Central to the success so far has been the focus on building trust between all involved. This has enabled us to practice truly participatory approaches (such as codesign) to explore challenging subjects and design creative solutions.
Creating lasting value through upskilling
As evaluation partner for the Greater London Authority’s (GLA) Civic Partnership Programme, Akou is supporting five London boroughs to enhance their evaluation and engagement activities. We’ve distilled our extensive experience into a set of guides and resources for borough teams to access when needed. These offer tips and best practice around topics such as data collection, methods of engagement and more technical aspects such as representative sample sizes. We’ve also provided one on one support and advice to help council officers to strengthen their capacity to deliver and evaluate impactful projects.
Using tech to balance creativity with practicality
Alongside our consultation services a core element of Akou is our focus on developing new digital solutions and tools. This is where we really try to balance creativity with practicality. We are currently developing ways for clients to maximise the use of their existing data, particularly around social capital and impact networks. We’re allowing people to explore interactive network maps and data insights that reveal hidden connections and relationship patterns related to their impact activity.
Over a decade of our experience is made accessible in our tools and services. If you need help to prove the good you do, want to visualise your impact network, or need support to get on the right track for impact measurement, we’ve got a number of ways we can help. Check out our range of services here.
