Measuring the community impact of Wungening Aboriginal Corporation

Stakeholders including Wungening’s board, executive, clients and staff as well as community Elders were engaged to synthesise perspectives on Wungening’s impact. From this, we developed:

• a theory of change that captures how Wungening works with its clients and community to improve health and wellbeing
  program logic models that capture the activities, outputs, outcomes and impacts of Wungening's services and the changes with broader impact
• an impact measurement framework (a library of agreed measures, data sources and reporting methods) that will enable Wungening to understand and communicate the impact of its programs and activities and ensure programs align with long-term objectives
• an implementation plan for the framework, including guidance on monitoring and evaluation tools, consistent processes and systems and guidance on securing resources.

The framework will foster improvement and transparency

The impact measurement framework showed how Wungening’s impact can be measured at a program, service area and organisational level. When implemented, it will enable Wungening to demonstrate its impact beyond contractual reporting requirements and will be used to target internal resources, drive continuous improvement, and provide transparency and accountability to its clients and the community.

The project demonstrated that Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations can have broader social impacts through their work (underpinned by Aboriginal ways of knowing, doing and being), their people and their economic and political influence.