Dimensions of impact offer a systematic yet flexible way to understand your organization’s impact on the people you aim to serve. Plus, they help visualize your hard-earned results in alignment with your mission, vision, and values.
What is a dimension of impact?
A dimension of impact is an essential piece of your impact framework. With the Dimensions feature, UpMetrics helps you clarify the different outcomes of your organizational efforts. Use it to implement your organization’s strategy and simplify taking action on insights.
Five recommended dimensions of impact
We recommend the following five dimensions of impact to identify the data you should collect to understand, evaluate, and demonstrate your impact. You will see them as the five columns reflected in your impact framework.
Dimensions of impact contain objectives and KIIs. Learn how to use objectives and KIIs here.
- Who
Who are you serving? This dimension of impact can be used to capture people you serve.
Example objective Feed our local community members. Example KII The number of participants in a weekly food bank. - What
What are you delivering? Use this dimension of impact to capture the products, services, or capital you offer.
Example objective Deliver a safe learning environment for children in an educational program. Example KII The number of educational events we host. - Quality
What is the level of quality of what you deliver? This is closely tied to the “What” dimension of impact. Use this to measure the quality of what you deliver and how effective your team is at delivering your products, services, or capital.
Example objective Deliver high-quality housing services. Example KII Number of crime reports in our housing offerings. - Better Off
How are the people you serve better off because of your work? This is closely tied to the “Who” dimension of impact. Use this to measure how the people you aim to serve have benefited from the work you do.
Example objective Improve social and emotional learning outcomes. Example KII Number of disruptive incidents in the classroom. - Community Contributions
How has your work impacted the broader community? Use this as an extension of your “Better Off” dimension of impact’s KIIs. Specifically, this is a way to measure your impact on the overall population of the community you serve.
Example objective Create a healthy community. Example KII Unemployment rate.
How to use the Dimensions feature in your impact framework
If you use one of the four premade impact framework templates, the five dimensions of impact we recommend will be automatically included.
Find out which impact framework template is right for you!
Customize your dimensions of impact
Most organizations leverage our five recommended dimensions of impact, but you can customize the ones you use with the Dimensions feature if you have a custom framework to work with.
There is a limit of 10 dimensions of impact per impact framework.
If you have an existing framework, you can add custom dimensions of impact by adding a new dimension of impact or removing ones that aren't relevant.
To edit a Dimension
- Select the kebab menu on the upper right hand corner of a dimension.
- Select the edit option.
- Make a change and save your progress to continue.
To delete a Dimension
- Select the kebab menu on the upper right hand corner of a dimension.
- Select the delete option
- Confirm your selection to permanently delete.
Deleting a dimension of impact also deletes any objectives and KIIs within it.
To add a new Dimension
- Select the option to add a dimension from the upper right hand corner of the screen.
- Add information and save your progress to continue.
🎉 Nice work! Now you're all set to organize your impact framework.