Impact & evidence
Reach is necessary. It is not the same as impact.
We do not measure success by attendance, publications or books distributed alone. We aim to show evidence of learning applied, leadership exercised, community value created and effective practices adopted beyond a single event or funding cycle.
The honest position
What we can stand behind today
- The external evidence base on this site: every statistic checked against its original source in October 2026.
- Our published frameworks: Culture Engineering, Homo Completum and this measurement approach.
What we are building now
- Pilot designs for Purpose Clubs, CE 101 and the Project 100,000 founding cycle in Nigeria.
- Baselines, indicator definitions, consent processes and a first evidence system.
What we will not claim until it is verified
- Learners reached, schools onboarded, clubs active or books distributed.
- Any change in young people's lives or communities attributed to our work.
01 Theory of change
Research → capability → action → adoption → enduring value.
When people understand their purpose, develop practical competencies and work with supportive institutions, they are better positioned to solve real problems. When institutions adopt what works, individual effort can become collective capability. Every transition requires evidence, feedback and adaptation.
We listen before we intervene.
Research and listening with communities, schools and institutions; reviewing evidence; diagnosing the behavioural and systemic patterns that reproduce a problem.
- Works mainly at
- Institution · Community · System
- Evidence
- Evidence reviews, baseline studies, cultural diagnostics
- Test before moving on
- Do we understand the context well enough to co-design with the people affected?
Insight becomes capability.
Academy learning, Purpose Club sessions, mentoring and supervised fieldwork develop purpose clarity, character, agency and practical skill.
- Works mainly at
- Individual · Group
- Evidence
- Pre/post assessments, purpose-clarity rubric, Culture Engineering competencies, assessed fieldwork and portfolios
- Test before moving on
- Can participants demonstrate what they learned, not just report that they attended?
Capability becomes purposeful action.
Learners apply what they can do to locally prioritised problems: student-led service projects, supervised field projects and community challenges.
- Works mainly at
- Group · Community
- Evidence
- Projects completed and verified, beneficiary feedback, ethical quality of delivery
- Test before moving on
- Was help delivered—and did the people it served judge it useful?
Institutions adopt what works.
Schools, employers, communities and public institutions take up effective practices: club charters, curriculum adoption, organisational practices and partnerships.
- Works mainly at
- Institution
- Evidence
- Partner adoption, school practice uptake, patron continuity
- Test before moving on
- Does the practice continue when OnPurpose Futures steps back?
Collective capability becomes durable value.
Individual effort becomes shared capability: clubs that outlast a cohort, local leadership succession, and models others can replicate responsibly.
- Works mainly at
- Community · System
- Evidence
- 6- and 12-month continuation, institutional uptake, replication quality, cost per sustained outcome
- Test before moving on
- What endured, and would it have happened anyway?
Our contribution across five levels
Critical assumptions
Participation does not guarantee transformation.
Our theory depends on programme quality, safe delivery, accessible participation, supportive schools and partners, sustained opportunities to practise, and credible measurement. We will test these assumptions and report both positive and disappointing findings rather than attributing all observed change to our interventions.
Assumptions Project 100,000 must test in its pilots
- Young people will voluntarily find the content relevant.
- Schools can assign functioning teacher patrons.
- Mixed public and private financing will remain equitable.
- Short-form stories can guide some young people toward deeper learning.
- Service experiences can reinforce beneficial norms.
- Local content can travel across borders without erasing diversity.
Each assumption needs pilot evidence, a threshold and the capacity to change course.
02 The measurement ladder
Beyond counting activities. We measure the change behind the numbers.
Five levels of evidence, from reach to durable outcomes. Each rung answers a different question—and each has limits. A programme can report a lower rung without claiming the ones above it.
The question
Who was engaged—and who was missed?
Illustrative indicators
- Unique learners reached
- Active schools
- Club enrolments
- Book distribution with verified receipt
- Participant inclusion
What it cannot tell us
Whether anyone learned or changed anything. Reach is necessary, but it is not impact.
The question
Did people keep taking part—safely and well?
Illustrative indicators
- Attendance and retention
- Sessions completed
- Mentor contact
- Safeguarding compliance
- Satisfaction and delivery fidelity
What it cannot tell us
Whether capability changed. Good attendance can coexist with little learning.
The question
What changed in knowledge, judgement and skill?
Illustrative indicators
- Pre/post assessments
- Purpose-clarity rubric
- Culture Engineering competencies
- Ethical reasoning
- Assessed fieldwork and portfolios
What it cannot tell us
Whether learning was put into practice outside the session.
The question
What was put into practice—and what improved?
Illustrative indicators
- Projects completed and verified
- Sustained club activity
- Community-defined improvements
- Partner adoption
- Participant follow-up
What it cannot tell us
Whether the change will last, or what would have happened anyway. That needs time and contribution analysis.
The question
What endured—and what was adopted or replicated?
Illustrative indicators
- 6- and 12-month continuation
- Institutional uptake
- Local leadership succession
- Replication quality
- Cost per sustained outcome
What it requires
Observation over time, comparison groups or contribution analysis where feasible, and independent review for major public claims.
Four measures we never conflate
One headline number would be easier. It would also be misleading.
For Project 100,000, the 100-million ambition counts distinct under-18s who completed a defined, meaningful engagement—not views or impressions. Channels are verified separately, with overlap and uncertainty reported.
Diagram not to scale
- A Exposure
- Views, impressions and event attendance. Reported as gross exposure only; never added automatically to unique reach.
- B Qualified reach
- A distinct person documented as completing a qualifying learning encounter, guided module or supervised intervention—deduplicated where lawful and technically defensible. This is the unit of the 100-million ambition.
- C Sustained participation
- Involvement across a defined cycle—for example, at least six facilitated sessions or an equivalent verified pathway.
- D Outcomes & durability
- Age-appropriate changes in skills and action, service-project quality, club continuity and institutional practice—with limitations stated.
03 Scorecard & evidence standard
A decision-useful scorecard. Evidence should inform action.
Every metric has an owner, a definition, a source, a baseline, a target and a verification method. Reach is reported separately from outcomes; outputs are distinguished from behaviour change.
People
Who takes part, and who stays.
Learners, retention, equity of access.
Capability
What people can now do.
Assessed skills, project evidence, progression.
Community
What improved locally.
Active clubs, partner feedback, local outcomes.
Systems
What institutions kept.
Institutional uptake, continuity, replication.
Anatomy of an indicator
Illustrative examplePurpose Clubs active twelve months after launch
- Definition
- A club that held at least one supervised session in each month of the most recent term, verified by the school.
- Unit
- Clubs (count and %)
- Numerator / denominator
- Active clubs at month 12 ÷ clubs launched in the cohort
- Target population
- Partner schools in the pilot cluster
- Disaggregation
- School type, region — aggregate only
- Baseline
- Established at pilot launch
- Target
- Agreed with school partners before launch
- Data owner
- Community Programmes lead
- Verification
- School-verified club register; termly activity audit
- Frequency
- Termly; 6- and 12-month review
- Consent / legal basis
- School partnership agreement; no student-level data
- Known limitations
- Activity is not quality; paired with session observation
Action taken in response to results is recorded alongside every reading.
Five dimensions of every impact claim
We apply the “What, Who, How much, Contribution, Risk” lens used in the GIIN's IRIS+ system.7
- What
Which outcome occurs, and how important is it to the people experiencing it?
- Who
Who experiences it, and how underserved were they before?
- How much
How many people, how deep the change, and for how long?
- Contribution
What would likely have happened without the programme?
- Risk
How likely is it that impact differs from what we expect—and what could go wrong?
04 Programme measurement register
How each programme will be measured.
A practical register for converting ambitions into verified reporting. Methods will be refined with partners during pilots.
| Programme | Primary outcome | Measurement method & cadence | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| CE 101 | Demonstrated introductory Culture Engineering competencies and ethical field application. | Pre/post assessment; project rubric; mentor review; completion + 3-month follow-up. | In development |
| Homo Completum | Improved purpose clarity, relational capacity and action planning. | Validated or adapted reflection rubric; baseline/endline; 3/6-month self-report with safeguards. | Developing framework |
| Purpose Clubs | Sustained student participation and responsible local leadership. | School-verified club register; attendance; termly activity audit; 6/12-month continuity. | Pilot model |
| Project 100,000 | Meaningful engagement with purpose materials and onward learning. | Distribution logs + receipt validation; opt-in follow-up; club and course conversion. | Target |
| OnPurpose Tour | Increased awareness and uptake of ongoing development pathways. | Event logs; feedback; opt-in follow-up; onward participation. | In development |
| Social Value Studio | Client and community outcomes against contracted objectives. | Baseline; partner dashboards; milestone verification; outcome review; final report. | Open for enquiries |
| Futures Labs | Solutions tested, improved and adopted by partners. | Pilot protocol; user feedback; outcome measures; adoption and cost assessment. | Planned |
05 Impact dashboard
Verified results will appear here. Nothing else will.
The dashboard separates planned or approved figures, work in progress and independently verified results. Switch to the demonstration view to see how reporting will look once pilots begin.
No verified outcome data has been published yet.
Programmes are in development. Reporting will begin after the first pilot cycle, with independent review of selected outcomes planned for the 12–24-month “Demonstrate” horizon of our roadmap.
Will be reported
- Schools onboarded and Purpose Clubs active
- Qualified reach (distinct, deduplicated)
- Books with verified receipt
- Facilitators trained and supervised
Alongside
- Learning and participation outcomes
- Student-led service projects verified
- 6- and 12-month continuity
- Safety, equity and incident resolution
With
- Definitions and denominators
- Data source and verification method
- Uncertainty and known limitations
- Null findings and unintended effects
Qualified reach
2,340
distinct learners · pilot cluster (demo)
Clubs active at 12 months
75%
18 of 24 clubs (demo)
Sustained participation
61%
of qualified reach, ≥ 6 sessions (demo)
Service projects verified
37
school-verified, this term (demo)
From exposure to outcomes
Learners at each level of evidence, pilot cluster · demonstration data
Club continuity after launch
% of launched clubs still active, by month · demonstration data
Equity check: sustained participation by track
% of qualified reach completing ≥ 6 sessions · demonstration data
Demonstration only. Real dashboards will show each figure's definition, source, verification status and date, and will separate planned, in-progress and independently verified figures.
06 How we label claims
Every claim on this site carries its status.
A mission statement is not evidence of delivery. These labels distinguish verified facts from work in progress, plans, ambitions and examples. Each uses a distinct shape as well as colour.
Checked against an original source or a verified operational record. Today this covers external statistics, each linked to its source.
Something you can act on now through this site, such as commissioning the Social Value Studio or expressing interest in a Purpose Club.
Designed and being refined or piloted, such as CE 101 and the Purpose Club model. Not yet a measured result.
An intellectual model we are building and testing in practice: Culture Engineering and Homo Completum.
A proposed initiative or capability that is not yet operating, such as Futures Labs, ACES or the Purpose Media Platform.
A defined goal for a stated period—for example, placing 100,000 books in structured learning journeys in the founding Nigerian cycle. Not a reported total.
A decade-scale aspiration—meaningfully reaching 100 million distinct under-18s across Africa within ten years. Not a forecast or a result.
A hypothetical example used to explain a model, such as a student's journey or a sample indicator.
Invented numbers that show how a dashboard or tool will work. Never presented as real.
A working interface not yet connected to production systems, such as the Academy dashboard preview.
Our reporting commitments
- 01
No fabricated baselines.
- 02
No outputs presented as outcomes.
- 03
No unverified attribution.
We will publish null findings, unintended effects and equity gaps. We will use independent evaluation for material outcome and continental impact claims. And we will distinguish verified results, independent evidence, illustrative targets and future ambitions in every public report.