Design Council Impact Framework

2023

Developed an organisation-wide impact framework and toolkit to support learning, evaluation, and evidence-based decision-making across the Design Council.

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Design Council 5 Year Mission 2023-28

Shortwork collaborated with the Design Council to design an overarching Theory of Change, Impact Framework and Toolkit, consolidating monitoring and evaluation across the organisation. The framework supports reflection, learning, and evidence-based decision-making while enabling flexibility for project-specific evaluation.

Our Approach

Having supported the Design Council (DC) over several years with programme-level monitoring and evaluation, we were delighted to work with them again to create a comprehensive organisation-wide impact framework and toolkit. The aim was to help DC:

• Stay focused on their mission;

• Assess whether objectives are being met at both project and organisation levels;

• Enable reflection and iteration to improve programme design and working practices; and

• Foster a culture of reflection, learning, and continuous improvement.

Working with our in-house ethics expert, Rosemary Lamport, we developed a framework that clearly defines charity-wide outputs and outcomes while providing a flexible set of tools that can be adapted for project-specific evaluation.

Key outputs

The toolkit includes:

1. Theory of Change tree highlighting organisations wide activities, outcomes and longer term impacts

2. Logic model linking organisation-wide and project-specific outputs and outcomes to indicators and M&E methods;

3. M&E spreadsheet to centralise data and clarify ownership;

4. Ethics checklist and consent form to ensure evaluations are transparent, rigorous, and protective of participants;

5. Diversity monitoring form to ensure DC work benefits people from diverse backgrounds;

6. Participatory evaluation tools, surveys, and interview guides to capture participant feedback and understand programme impact;

7. Dissemination spreadsheet for tracking web analytics and citations;

8. Wash-up session template to gather feedback from staff, clients, and collaborators.

Impacts

The Theory of Change, impact framework and toolkit have helped DC embed a culture of reflection and learning, supporting both programme-level evaluation and organisation-wide decision-making. It is also a key part of their organisational strategy, helping to communicate their guiding vision and mission to diverse audiences.

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“The Design Council commissioned Shortwork to help develop an evaluation framework and toolkit that could be used across the work of the charity. The team were brilliant at helping us to build on our existing tools and developed a consistent M&E approach that was tailored to the needs of the organisation. The resulting framework is comprehensive but succinct, easy-to-use, and can be adapted across the breadth of work we do. At the end of the project, they also ran a fantastic training session for the organisation on the toolkit, which has been an invaluable first step in embedding this across our work.”

Bernard Hay, Head of Research and Practice, The Design Council

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