Making Impact Count: Highlights from Our Charity Impact Masterclass
This month, we were delighted to deliver a Charity Impact Masterclass in partnership with RBC Brewin Dolphin at their Newcastle offices. The event, hosted by Charity Investment Manager Jeffrey Ball, brought together charity leaders from across the region for a practical, energising session on how to better understand, evidence and maximise the difference they make.
It was brilliant to see the room full of people so engaged in this vital conversation. At the heart of it all was a simple but powerful question: how do we really know we’re making an impact?
Our founder, Matt Wilson, opened the session by sharing a series of ‘impact maxims’—practical principles drawn from over 20 years of working alongside charities. These are the kind of reminders that help teams stay focused on what matters most, even when things are busy. One that struck a chord with many attendees was:
“Outputs tell us how busy we are but outcomes tell us how effective we are.”
– Matt Wilson, Goodlabs
It’s a simple but game-changing mindset shift that keeps impact front and centre from day one.
Next, our CRM expert, Abi Green, took the baton to lead a hands-on session exploring the data side of the impact puzzle. She shared best practices for capturing and analysing meaningful data—without making it a burden—and showed how our charity CRM, Cimplify, can help track the full beneficiary journey. It’s all about turning data into insight, and insight into action.
One attendee summed it up perfectly:
“All too often impact reporting just includes the data, but it’s the ‘so what?’ that matters.”
Exactly that.
A huge thank you to Jeffrey and the team at RBC Brewin Dolphin for hosting us, and to everyone who attended and contributed so thoughtfully to the discussion. It was great to pass on some practical tips, renewed clarity, and fresh inspiration to demonstrate the powerful work the region’s charities are doing.