Case Studies
Many organizations, including nonprofits, donor networks, evaluators, impact investors and companies, choose ImpactMapper to track impact, inform strategy and measure success. Here are some of their stories.
Many organizations, including nonprofits, donor networks, evaluators, impact investors and companies, choose ImpactMapper to track impact, inform strategy and measure success. Here are some of their stories.
The 1803 Fund is committed to strengthening community-led solutions through its For the Future grant program. To maximize the program’s effectiveness, the Fund sought to update its reporting processes, develop clear impact metrics, and integrate data collection into a streamlined system. One of the Fund’s core challenges was designing reporting tools that could both capture grantee achievements and feed into a comprehensive system for ongoing analysis and learning. To address this need, the 1803 Fund partnered with ImpactMapper as its MEL advisor and technology provider. The collaboration began with redesigning annual reporting forms to better reflect the program’s impact metrics and to capture both quantitative and qualitative data from grantees. These forms were developed with a focus on usability and alignment with the Fund’s long-term goals.
Beyond reporting forms, ImpactMapper onboarded the 1803 Fund to its software platform. The partnership also included support for API integration with Submittable to ensure seamless data transfer between grant applications and reporting. Furthermore, the collaboration led to enhancements in ImpactMapper’s survey functionality. Together with the 1803 Fund, ImpactMapper introduced new mechanisms that allow weights to be assigned within survey design, enabling more complex analysis and deeper insights into grantee progress and outcomes.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) brings together activists, scientists, lawyers, and other environmental specialists to tackle the climate crisis, protect wildlife, and secure everyone’s right to clean air, clean water, and healthy communities. Although established in 1950, NRDC has faced the challenge of systematically tracking its impact through a comprehensive MEL system that captures both external achievements and internal processes. To address this, NRDC has engaged ImpactMapper as its MEL partner and advisor since June 2025, with the goal of designing a robust, equity-focused framework to measure and demonstrate impact. The collaboration began with the Environmental Health division, where the initial objective was to track progress in the department’s Toxics and Adaptation work. Over time, however, the partnership expanded, and ImpactMapper now provides broader MEL support, helping to establish organization-wide processes and systems for NRDC’s Environmental Health division.
Solidago Foundation has supported progressive grassroots organizing for 25 years. They are sunsetting their foundation and they hired ImpactMapper to help tell their story of their impact through their grantmaking and partnerships. One of the core challenges the Foundation had is that a vast amount of their grant data is not digitized and exists in paper files. In order to tell a comprehensive story they needed all grants data digitized and aligned for analysis across the 25 years. As such ImpactMapper has helped them on technological, technical, and analytical levels. In terms of consistent analysis of grantmaking and report data. Across the 25 years, we have helped them to develop a grants and achievements taxonomy that will be used to synthesize data across the 25 years in a consistent way.
In terms of technology, we have helped them to digitize all their grants data. We have built a number of technology tools that are now in the ImpactMapper software to do this. First we had them take pictures and pdf the paper files.
Then we built an OCR pipeline to extract text data from the pdf grant award documents that used to be physical paper and created a digitized grants database for analysis. We then applied the taxonomy to the data extracted columns where relevant and merged this extracted database with what they had in Salesforce in later years. We also developed an AI-enabled auto-tagging tool and search tool for text documents, reports, evaluations, etc to more efficiently code qualitative data and grantee reports in pdf. Finally, once all the data was in a database, we could prepare a brief on grantmaking and core foundation achievements over the 25 years, which is forthcoming at the end of 2025.
Spotlight Initiative is a historic partnership and 500 million euro fund between the EU and UN to end violence against women and girls around the world. ImpactMapper was commissioned to create Spotlight Initiative'sCompendium of Innovative and Good Practices and Lessons Learned. The ImpactMapper team developed the methodology, conducted site visits in 6 countries, analyzed over 320 documents from country and regional programmes, as well as produced and designed the report. We used the ImpactMapper software to qualitatively code all the documents for lessons learned, case studies, and best practices. From this data, we produced the Compendium report which details more than 50 case studies across six outcome areas and 13 briefs across diverse themes. The Compendium provides policymakers and practitioners with knowledge that is high-impact, sustainable, and localized.
The UMI Fund supports movements and partners driving systemic change, and as its portfolio of grantees has grown, so has the need for a streamlined approach to track and analyze results. The Fund required a system that could capture complex qualitative data and also transform this information into clear, accessible materials for both internal learning and external communication. To address this need, the UMI Fund partnered with ImpactMapper to strengthen its grant management and monitoring capacity. The engagement began with an advisement process, during which ImpactMapper worked with team members through a participatory approach to revise and align grantmaking and outcome taxonomies with UMI’s impact metrics and strategy. In addition, ImpactMapper developed an API integration with Airtable, ensuring seamless transfer of grants data into the ImpactMapper application. This allowed the UMI Fund to connect existing data management practices with its new reporting and monitoring processes, improving efficiency and reducing duplication. Finally, the Fund was onboarded onto the ImpactMapper software, receiving an annual license, a one-time data transfer, and a dedicated onboarding session.
ImpactMapper is a learning partner, providing advisory support, implementation support and coaching to the Fondation CHANEL Impact & Learning (I&L) team. With the foundation’s Impact Framework finalized, the ImpactMapper team is supporting the I&L implementation. In 2024, we facilitated a process with the global leadership team to define an organization-wide grant taxonomy. We then led the process of coding all grants with the new taxonomy and prepared a grant synthesis presentation for the global and regional boards, providing an in-depth analysis of all their active grants. We will be further supporting them in the next steps in their outcome taxonomy and impact tracking.
Porticus has been investing in the Tropical Network Programme since 2019, with the goal of supporting grantees in the Vital Catholic Thought (VCT) portfolio and generating systematic impact across the Catholic Higher Education sector. As the programme approached its mid-point, Porticus sought a Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) partner to assess progress, strengthen learning, and inform the design of future phases of the programme. To meet this need, Proticus partnered with ImpactMapper as its MEL partner and advisor. The engagement focused on generating insights into the programme’s effectiveness and implementation from 2019 to 2024. Through this partnership, ImpactMapper supported Porticus in strengthening the Topical Network Programme by developing a MEL framework grounded in the Theory of Change, co-creating indicators with staff and partners, aligning grantee data systems with portfolio-level goals, facilitating learning spaces to build MEL capacity, and benchmarking the programme against other funders in the higher education field. The work primarily served internal stakeholders, including the VCT portfolio team, regional staff, the Effective Philanthropy Group, and Porticus’ management and governance committees. It also produced findings that were accessible to grantees and, where appropriate, to external stakeholders in the Catholic Higher Education sector and the broader funding community.
Build Equity for Alignment and Environmental Justice (BEA) is a grassroots-led organization that works to transform the environmental movement by shifting power and resources to frontline communities. ImpactMapper has been BEA’s MEL partner since 2021. We have supported the participatory development and implementation of its Theory of Change, impact framework, reporting forms and processes for the organization, and grants made through the BEA Fund. We have also led participatory MEL training and capacity sessions with BEA Fund grantees around storytelling methodology for impact tracking. In 2023, we collected the first year of data from their grantees on the ImpactMapper software platform, produced BEA’s first annual impact report, and developed messages and analysis to support advocacy on the importance of funding environmental justice.
The Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation (WRF) advances equity and economic justice in Arkansas through its grantmaking and partnerships. To strengthen its learning and reporting systems, WRF partnered with ImpactMapper to analyze its equity-focused grants and annual grantmaking reports using the ImpactMapper software platform. As part of this collaboration, WRF also supported the development of an API integration with Trint, a transcription tool that converts audio and video into text. This innovation enables the automatic import of grantee oral reports and interviews into ImpactMapper for analysis, making it easier to capture insights from community voices and reduce reporting burdens on grantees. This partnership strengthened WRF’s ability to understand impact across its portfolio while making reporting more trust-based and accessible, keeping grantees’ voices and community experiences at the heart of learning and decision-making.
ImpactMapper supported Norwegian Human Rights Fund (NHRF) in developing a grant taxonomy and outcome taxonomy that is shared across its 2 offices in Oslo and Colombia in 2023. ImpactMapper also trained the staff in how to use ImpactMapper and onboarded them with the software., which they continue to use.
We conducted an evaluation of IKEA's influence and contributions to the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in 2021. During this process, we collected data from corporates, NGOs, and consumers using the ImpactMapper survey tool that was embedded in QR codes through IKEA's hubs at COP26 and their store in Glasgow. Check out the video link to see ImpactMapper surveys in action during the event. https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6864512990146764800/
Since 2013, Malala Fund has been working for a world where every girl can learn and lead, investing in local education activists, advocating to hold leaders accountable and amplifying girls’ voices. ImpactMapper has been a learning partner for Malala Fund since 2019. We have led a workshop with Malala Fund staff on gender and inclusion in their programming by integrating gender and intersectional analysis into their grantmaking and influencing activities. We have supported the development of their Theory of Change, outcomes and metrics and reporting processes for all of their grantmaking portfolios. All Malala Fund MEL staff uses the ImpactMapper software. The MEL team and their grantees also participated in our storytelling trainings. In 2023, we created an Impact Report for the first year of the Girl Fund Programme with the Malala Fund team. Moreover, Malala Fund supported us with a $140,000 pilot grant to develop an equitable and practical application of AI to enable more efficient method of coding and learning from their qualitative, storytelling and impact data, with a focus on inclusiveness of voices from women and marginalized communities.
PAWHR used ImpactMapper to collect and analyze all grants made in the network in 2018 and 2019. This has equipped them to learn about shared areas of funding, synergies and gaps that can influence and strengthen grantmaking in the future. PAWHR also used IM to conduct a grantee perception survey in 2017.
Charge Incubator based in Oslo, Norway hired ImpactMapper to conduct an assessment of the impact of their incubator program from 2017-2020. The ImpactMapper team, conducted interviews with a sample of companies and startup ecosystem actors in addition to collecting data from the companies through the ImpactMapper survey tool. The analysis resulted in the following Impact Report.
Oak Foundation’s Issues Affecting Women Program (IAWP) were collecting grantees’ progress and final reports in Word document formats that did not allow them analyze and compare outcome trends easily. They engaged with ImpactMapper to analyze these Word reports through our tool. This enabled them to tag the data with their current Theory of Change outcomes to see key trends. They have piloted collecting their progress and final reports through ImpactMapper’s survey tools, which gives them instant access to aggregate progress, results and visualizations of their grantmaking portfolios. In addition, the IAWP has granted ImpactMapper licenses to 40 of its grantees and 3 intermediaries for two years to strengthen their monitoring and evaluation capacity, track and visualize their progress, identify areas for deeper attention and support organizational and programmatic learning.
For the past 50 years, UNFPA has been supporting reproductive health care for women and youth, gender-based violence prevention and family planning facilitation in more than 150 countries. ImpactMapper completed a synthesis evaluation of 57 country UNFPA program reports to take stock of lessons learned around three transformative results: ending maternal mortality, eliminating gender based violence and harmful practices and ensuring access to family planning. The synthesis findings were launched at UNFPA’s 50th anniversary and shed light on UNFPA’s global impact and lessons learned. The full report and the Lessons Learned policymaking brief can be found here.
The Strengthening Communities through Integrated Programming project, funded by USAID and implemented by Pathfinder Mozambique, undertook a five-year sequential mixed methods study led by Claire Cole to understand the factors contributing to notable increases in institutional deliveries— associated with improved maternal and child health outcomes. Recognizing the versatility of ImpactMapper, the team used the platform to analyze in depth interviews with traditional birth attendants, nurses, community leaders, and beneficiaries. The resulting analysis was published in Reproductive Health in August, 2018.
The Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) of the UNDP used ImpactMapper to conduct a meta-synthesis of 105 Independent Country Programme Evaluations over a period of 15 years, from 2002-2017. The reports were coded, categorized and organized according to evaluation questions based on the OECD-DAC criteria and allowed for comparison and correlation, capturing factors that influence and affect results in the areas of poverty reduction, governance, environment and climate change. The ImpactMapper consulting team worked in close collaboration with IEO’s team to conduct the coding and the visualization of analysis. The report can be found here.
Oxfam International used ImpactMapper to conduct a meta-analysis of evaluation reports and learning documents. This enabled them to systematically assess progress in achieving their strategic plan goal on shifting norms related to gender based violence. Also, using our platform, they collected and analyzed interview data according to Oxfam's key outcomes.
+impact accelerator, based in Copenhagen Denmark is using ImpactMapper to track week-over-week progress of their companies in the four month accelerator program. In addition, they are using our product to track the impact of their accelerator program. +impact also uses ImpactMapper to collect feedback from participating companies on the quality of their weekly lectures and programming which is an essential component for program improvement.
