Impacts Toolkit
Impacts
An impact is an economic, environmental, health and well-being, or civic engagement condition that is changed by educational events and other Extension activities. Impacts can occur at the community, organizational, family, or the individual level. Impacts are extremely important because, when well written, they clearly illustrate the significance of our work. It improves the visibility of our programs, which leads to greater support and a better understanding of its value to the nation, state, or community.
A success story is similar to an impact statement but narrower in scope. It focuses on the change related to the individual. But, you can take a success story with one or more individuals and extrapolate to a larger community. You can demonstrate how the change in behavior for a single individual if applied to the target population could, for example, decrease the costs for the juvenile justice system due to behavior changes in at-risk youth, reduce the need for county medical services because of changes in eating habits among low-income families, increase the county tax base when produce or animals have more value in the market due to farmers and growers using best practices, etc.
Resources
- Guidelines for Writing Quality Impact Statements
- Rubric to Help Write Impact Statements
- Writing SMART Objectives — PowerPoint Presentation
- National Association of Counties "County Intelligence Connection 2.0"
- Secondary Data Resources
- SimplyAnalytics (free for UF faculty and staff; use VPN if not on campus computer)
- Databases by Extension Goals
- For a more expanded search, use the Finding Databases service provided through the Smathers Libraries.
- Need to estimate the value of your volunteer hours? Use the Florida dollar value for POW/ROA reports and the national rate when reporting at a higher level.
Not sure where to start? Check out UF's Ask a Librarian chat service. You can email or phone them as well. IFAS has its own dedicated librarian - look under "Contact a Subject Specialist" on the Ask a Librarian Web page.
Contact Amy Harder or Diane Craig at 352-392-0386 for further assistance.
