I recently spoke with Karol Boudreaux of Landesa about what it really takes to communicate impact with integrity. Our conversation touched on some of the core challenges faced by organizations trying to capture and convey their impact effectively.
One of the first things Karol highlighted was the nuance behind impact numbers. Saying “we impacted 250 million people” is not so straightforward. While a big number like that sounds powerful, it needs to be presented in context. Carol said "You have to be able to really communicate clearly the problem that you’re solving for. What is the problem? How are you contributing to solving it?" This piece can get lost in the rush to quantify and share results.
The risk is that the impact numbers can end up being more of a marketing exercise than a true reflection of impact. Impact is complex, and sharing that complexity isn’t necessarily going to drive your audience away. Ethical impact sharing can draw in those who want to understand systems change, and help educate people on the bigger picture.
While discussing the power of storytelling, we talked about how it’s easy to tell a simple, linear story. For instance, “This family didn’t have a house, and now they do” is easy for a reader to grasp. However the reality of systems change is much more complex. Systems change isn’t a single moment or intervention, but a long (often unpredictable) process.
As we dug deeper, Karol reflected on the power, and challenge, of storytelling in impact work. She noted, "Good storytelling is really hard. It takes a lot of work." It’s not just capturing a single moment or finding a compelling anecdote. It’s about honoring the truth of what’s happening on the ground without slipping into a ‘savior narrative’ where the organization becomes the hero of every story.
Who gets to tell the story, and how it’s told, also matters. Because we aren’t simply trying to create slick marketing to get more investors or donations, we’re also trying to shift a larger narrative. How we communicate is part of the work.
Karol emphasized the importance of reputation in impact work. It’s not just about being transparent or avoiding ‘impact-washing’ in a single report. It’s about building long-term trust with your partners, investors and the communities you work with. She noted, "Having that threat, even if it was only in my mind, that someone’s going to ask me to prove the impact, was quite helpful, actually."
Karol also mentioned the importance of revisiting data, sometimes years later. This leads to a challenging but important question: How do you stay accountable to the communities you serve, not just to your funders? One way is to close the loop, bringing data back to those communities years after a project ends and asking for their perspective. It’s a deeper, more time-consuming approach to transparency, but one that can transform the relationship between organizations and the people they aim to support. Sharing the stories of relationship-across-time can also help your audience see the depth of the work.
As our conversation wrapped up, it was clear that the path to truly meaningful impact reporting is in constant evolution. The stories we choose to tell, the data we choose to share, and the voices we choose to elevate will all shape how impact work evolves in the years to come.
As someone focused on the communications end of impact, I appreciated the opportunity to talk with Karol about the complexities of measuring impact and the longer-term focus of what to do with the data. It’s not just about proving success, but about building trust and understanding in a world that often demands simple answers to complex problems.
What do you think? How should we be talking about impact? And what questions should we be asking to move this field forward?