Seeking a consultant with social impact expertise to develop an organization wide social impact & measurement framework

Our Organization

The YWCA Metro Vancouver is one of the largest social service agencies in British Columbia and operates on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples. For 125 years, the YWCA has acted and advocated to right the inequities women and families experience through responsive services, culturally sensitive programs and forward-thinking advocacy.

Our mission is to, “advance gender equity alongside women, families, Two-spirit and gender diverse people through advocacy and integrated services that help support personal, collective and economic

wellbeing.” Our values can be found here. We are committed to advancing gender inclusion, anti-racism, truth and reconciliation, decolonization, IDEA (inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility) and a participant-centered approach. Our strategic plan and 5-year goals are outlined here.

Operational headquarters are located at 535 Hornby Street in downtown Vancouver. The YWCA is appropriately described as an entrepreneurial non-profit. With an annual budget of nearly $50 million, the organization generates annual revenue from social enterprises: a hotel and residence and a health and fitness centre. Other revenues are generated through fundraising, government contracts, fee-for- service programs, investments, events and more. This includes our employment programs which provide 73 community programs/services in 178 locations serving all genders and ages. Services located primarily in the Metro Vancouver regional district, cities of: Vancouver, Burnaby, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Surrey, Richmond, Delta, Langley, White Rock, North & West Vancouver. In the Fraser Valley regional district, Chilliwack, Abbotsford, Mission. Services in the Thompson – Okanagan and Fraser-Fort George regions.

The YWCA has a highly engaged workforce of approximately 500 employees (including over 330 full- time) and hundreds of individual and group volunteers.

Impact Measurement Project Overview

At the YWCA Metro Vancouver, we are interested in understanding, measuring and sharing our social impact. This includes building a shared framework, systems, processes and tools that support a response to the following questions at a program and an organizational level:

• What has changed because of what we do? To whom?
• Why does it matter in the short/medium and longer term?
• What is the value of the interconnection and impact of a multi services organization?

• Phase 1: Recommend and develop an organization wide framework and/or approach to capture social impact, including engagement and feedback from frontline employees and participants.
• Phase 2: Develop an engagement and change plan to implement the framework, including the development of IT systems, tools, processes and training.
• Phase 3: Implement and plan for sustainment of the impact framework/approach.  

Long term outcomes we are working towards, include:

• An organization wide framework/approach, against which we can align, understand needs/gaps/improvements and report collective impacts at a program and organizational level
• A strategy, including processes and IT systems for data collection, management and reporting, guided by a trauma informed approach, IDEA lens and with attention to qualitative data/measures. We wish to incorporate more storytelling in how we share our impact.
• Grow a culture of understanding, assessing and actioning/decision making based on impact at all levels of the organization
• Ability to share our program and organizational impact in a clear, collective and compelling way (e.g. with staff, current & potential funders/donors, partners, public etc.).
• A dashboard/score card type process and report that tells the story of our impact on a quarterly/annual basis.

Role of Consultant

We are seeking a consultant with expertise in social impact measurement design, development and implementation to advise and support us in completing phase 1 of work (as outlined above). Depending on decisions made in phase 1, there may then be continued work related to phase 2 & 3.

We are looking to the selected consultant’s advice and recommendations and suggest that the following could be a part of the phase 1 consultant’s work:

• Gather information regarding where we are currently at – what tools we use, current processes for data collection, known considerations/limitations, who are our beneficiaries/partners, funders, partners and other interested parties
• In consideration of where we are currently at, advise and recommend how we might mature and innovate in this area.
• Research and highlight leading practices in this area in other multi service organizations, with a similar size and scope.
• Share the value, pros and cons of aligning to external frameworks (i.e. sustainable livelihoods, social determinants of health, UN sustainable goals, other?) or methods/planning tools (e.g. Theory of change) to support us in determining which would best support our organization to increase, align and share the story of our impact.
• Partner with internal resources to develop a framework and/or approach with a high engagement approach.
• Through the work, mentor internal resources and build internal capacity in this area.

  Project timing

From our current research, we understand that reaching our outcomes outlined above, may be a long process. We want to do this work with engagement from our staff. We are looking to hire a consultant and begin the project by March 2025. Ideally, we will have completed Phase 1 within 6-12 months. We are open to recommendations from the consultant on the timing and in alignment with the approach we take.

Project budget

We have up to a maximum of $25,000 to complete phase 1 and to set us up for future phases of the overall project.