NPC's achievements

NPC is dedicated to helping charities achieve a greater impact, and we also think about the impact of our own work. Read about some of our achievements below.

Building and sharing our research and tools

‘I would just like to say how helpful the 'Talking About Results' document was in getting us started in impact reporting...The examples of good practice were not complex, costly things that were out of our range, and so this gave us the confidence to get started.’ - Sandy Pfeifer, The Civil Service Benevolent Fund

NPC has published more than 90 research reports and more than 20 examples of charity analysis. Almost 100,000 copies of our reports have been downloaded to date. Our research has led to concrete changes by funders and charities to increase their effectiveness:

• Funders have responded to our recommendations. A group of funders, led by the Rayne Foundation, supported a scoping exercise to lay the foundations for a new organisation to tackle low numeracy in England. This was in response to one of the main recommendations of Count me in, NPC’s report on numeracy.

• NPC has highlighted barriers to effectiveness. Drawing on the findings of our report, Turning the tables, which calls for charities to work with their funders to streamline reporting, one charity challenged its funder on excessive reporting requirements. The charity succeeded in getting these scaled back, and as a result, has been better able to focus on changing the lives of the people it supports.

• Our research has fuelled campaigns for increased government funding. Our report Ordinary lives prompted one foundation, The True Colours Trust, to fund a campaign for better services for disabled and life-limited children. The Every Disabled Child Matters campaign ultimately resulted in an extra £430m from government for services for disabled children and their families.

Providing first-rate advice and consulting

‘Our partnership with NPC has been both enjoyable and rewarding ... They have certainly helped us in our strategic thinking and funding priorities and how we might make the biggest impact.’ - Andrew Blessley, The Clothworkers’ Foundation

NPC has advised hundreds of funders over the last ten years, including corporate foundations, charitable trusts and wealthy individuals. Since we introduced our charity consulting service in 2008, we’ve worked with charities including small community organisations, household names like Macmillan Cancer Support, and umbrella bodies such as ACEVO. Read examples of our work here.

• We have prompted charities to become more effective. When we analysed Chance UK we highlighted one particular weakness in the charity: an overreliance on the chief executive. As a result, the charity made several changes, including creating a second-tier of senior management and involving the trustees in day-to-day activities.

• Charities take measurement and evaluation more seriously as a result of NPC’s influence. Several charities we’ve worked with have appointed staff whose job it is to measure their charity’s impact, on NPC’s advice. After our analysis, Quaker Social Action created a new position, quality and engagement manager, to focus on impact. The charity IntoUniversity prioritised measurement following analysis by NPC, creating a robust, in-house database to track results. Homelessness charity Thames Reach now builds evaluation costs into funding bids for new initiatives, following recommendations from NPC.

• Our advice has helped our charity clients to attract funding. After we researched a new financing model for the disability charity Scope, the director of fundraising commented: 'The media coverage we received from the report NPC published was extremely useful in generating interest in the product, which has directly led to the acquisition of donors.'

Inspiring and leading the debate about charity effectiveness

‘New Philanthropy Capital is one of the most intelligent and balanced voices on third sector matters.’ - Matthew Taylor, RSA

NPC gets people talking about charity effectiveness. We regularly feature in the sector and national press, and our blog attracts 6,500 readers every month.

• NPC’s knowledge and ideas reach a wide audience. We want as many people as possible to read our reports and learn about charity effectiveness, which is why we publish our research and methodology for free on our website. 2,500 reports are downloaded on average every month. The little blue book, which sets out our charity analysis methodology and identifies the traits of an effective charity, has been downloaded almost 5000 times since its publication last year.

• NPC raises the profile of effectiveness. A public lecture by chief executive Martin Brookes at the RSA in 2010 kickstarted a sector-wide discussion about the morality of charitable giving, covered in the Guardian, on BBC Breakfast, Radio 4's Today Programme, and across the sector press. Third Sector concluded: 'you have to hand it to Martin Brookes - he knows how to get a debate going'.

• NPC's international work contributes to a global debate about charity effectiveness. Our partners include the Bertelsmann Foundation in Germany, Copal Partners in India, and the Hewlett Foundation in the USA. Our methodology has influenced similar organisations from Brazil to Canada, Germany to Israel. In 2009, NPC and Bertelsmann jointly hosted the conference Valuing impact: Building an Association of Nonprofit Analysts, which led to the foundation of the Social Impact Analysts (SIA) Association, an international membership body for nonprofit analysts.

To find out more about NPC’s impact, read case studies of our work, our report about the value of charity analysis, and our latest annual report.