You can prove your impact in the
third sector even when progress isn’t linear

The everyday reality: impact is clear, evidence is harder

In the third sector, impact is often obvious to the people who experience it. Teams see change happening in real time: someone re-engages after isolation, confidence returns, stability improves.

But that’s difficult to evidence on paper. Reporting demands a sharper account: what changed, how do we know, and can we show it credibly?

Why outcomes evidence can feel like a burden

Expectations have increased, and funders are right to want to understand what their investment achieves.

But charities are delivering under pressure, with limited capacity and tight budgets. Evaluation can start to feel like a compliance task, competing with service delivery rather than strengthening it.

That’s exactly what we heard in our work with third sector organisations in 2025, including members of the Association of Mental Health Providers (AMHP): lots of data being collected, but not always the kind that clearly demonstrates outcomes.

What makes outcomes hard to capture

Outcomes are real but rarely simple. Progress is often non-linear, especially in mental health and wellbeing support, where “success” may mean fewer crises or sustained engagement rather than dramatic change.

Outcomes are also shaped by wider systems – housing, benefits, employment, primary care – so it’s rarely realistic to claim sole causation. Add the ethical and practical challenges of measurement in trauma-informed services, and consistent outcome capture becomes even harder.

How capacity-building helps: what we did with AMHP

Our approach is to make evaluation proportionate, usable and sustainable. With over 20 mental health service providers in collaboration with the AMHP, we focused on clarifying a small set of meaningful outcomes.

Those outcomes include stepping-stones to impact, such as clients engaging more with people in their local community, an important precursor of better long term mental health), articulating a clear pathway to change, and taking a “less, but better” approach to evidence.

We helped them understand how to combine a few consistent measures (like fewer missed appointments or reduced reliance on harmful coping strategies) that are relevant to their organisation with structured qualitative insight, without undermining trust.

What changes when evaluation capacity improves

When evaluation capacity improves, organisations communicate their value more confidently, services improve through clearer learning loops, and funder relationships strengthen through more credible outcome evidence.

If you’re a third sector organisation struggling to evidence your impact, we’d welcome a conversation. Contact Andy Jones at andy@futurecarecapital.org.uk.