Virtual Summit on Impact

An annual event to build a Common Framework for Assessing, Understanding and Maximizing Impact

There is a rapidly growing gap between pressing public needs and available resources. Forward-thinking philanthropies, governments, and other organisations that invest to achieve targeted education, economic, and social outcomes are continuously improving the methods they use to predict and measure the real-world impact of programmes they fund. Focusing on impact achieved is a necessary step to ensure limited resources are used in smart and efficient ways and to identify opportunities to improve outcomes.

Maximizing overall impact is of critical importance. Accurate and timely Impact metrics enable funders to ensure smart and efficient use of their limited resources and to identify opportunities to improve outcomes in subsequent funding rounds. Impact metrics are also essential to ensure the sustainability and continuous improvement of successful programs and practices whose lessons and findings would be lost without clear measures of achieved impact.

Yet, there is at present no common understanding or agreement among funders, grantees or target populations about how impact is best measured, when it can and should be measured, which impact measures or measurement strategies are appropriate in different contexts, how impact data and measurement tools can most beneficially be shared, or even a common definition of the scope of outcomes implied by the word impact.

Developing a common framework for assessing, understanding, and maximizing impact is the goal for the Virtual Summit on Impact.

Virtual Summit on Impact. - 1^st edition

32 speakers | 410 attendees from 57 countries | 11 hours of discussion and debate

The first edition of the Virtual Summit on Impact, organized by the FMSH, in partnership with the European Foundation Centre (EFC), and took place between the 16 and 19 of November 2020. It brought together 32 speakers and 410 attendees from 57 countries for 11 hours of discussion and debate.

The first two days of the Summit were dedicated to the launch event of the European Funders for Impact (EFI), a joint initiative by the EFC and the FMSH, gathering like-minded philanthropic representatives to explore ways in which new forms of collaboration designed to increase overall impact can be considered, evaluated, pilot-tested, showcased, and replicated.
| Day 1 highlights - Day 2 highlights

The third and fourth day of the Summit, organized by the FMSH, were dedicated to the measurement of impact in research activity. The participants seeked to design long-term strategies to promote impactful research on pressing global challenges.
| Day 3 highlights - Day 4 highlights

► Watch the video recordings of the Summit

January 19, 2021
Hal Plotkin, Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education | Leadership styles matter: The key finding for grantmakers and grantees from the Virtual Summit on Impact

January 29, 2021
Emmanuel Kattan, Alliance Program - Columbia University | Restoring Trust, Delivering Impact

February 5, 2021
Lisa Petrides, Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education | FMSH Partners with ISKME to Provide Social Impact Services

February 11, 2021
Alexandra Duperray, Fondation Maison des sciences de l'homme | Circulation of knowledge: what impacts for the research landscape and its actors? The case of the Atlas mobility program in the MENA region