Hello friends,
Welcome to Theory of Change. Each week I share mental models I’ve used in two decades of building teams and projects. New here? Join 1,000+ other nonprofit leaders, funders, creators, and social entrepreneurs by subscribing.
It’s early August as I write to you here in the rainy Sauerland. I’m just back to work after a few weeks away. Some of you, like me, are likely creeping back from summer mode, oscillating between calendar planning, goal setting, and Q4 prep, whatever that is.
So this week, I’m looking at how organisations (and the lovely, fallible humans that run them) sometimes lose sight of what matters. And, crucially, how to get it back.
Today, we’ll talk about values-based impact, an alternative way to decide what really matters in the work we do.
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🌒 VALUES-BASED IMPACT 🌒
If you work in public (art, advocacy, journalism, nonprofits, social enterprise…) someone will, at some point, ask you for proof.
Boards want dashboards. Funders want evidence. Clients want reach. The YouTube content studio wants hockey sticks. Even your audience may want to know how you’re different from the next local journalism or anti-poverty initiative pitching the same promise.
So you translate your values into something countable. Viewers. Clicks. Attendees. Grants won. We’ve all done it.
But somewhere along the way, the numbers take over. You shape the work around what performs, not what matters, and performance becomes the proxy for purpose. Metrics become the mission.
As Vincent Sanchez-Gomez says, “Metrics can inform impact goals, but shouldn’t define them.”
So let’s look at why the opposite sometimes happens, and how to work differently through a values-based understanding of impact.
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Why it matters
Look, we’re all friends here. We’ve all been in situations where impact has become performative. You reverse engineer your annual report to dress meaning in measurement. You hit a funder target but know, quietly, it missed the point. you release something sub-standard because the algorithm will like it.
When metrics start to shape the work, not reflect it, complexity and nuance get flattened and numbers can obstruct the real reason for doing what we do.
A values-based approach to measuring whether your thing works or not offers a way back. It puts purpose before optics and makes room for honest reflection, especially when the real impact is relational, long-term, or hard to quantify.
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When to use it
When growth targets start to shape creative output more than connection When external reporting starts to feel like performance, not accountability When funders or boards ask for impact you know can’t be reduced to numbers When internal choices (who you hire, who you serve, what you prioritise) start drifting When your work spans communities, systems, or identities that resist neat categorisation
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How to use it
Vincent Sanchez-Gomez’s great essay (linked later!) refers to three “complexes.” If you’re suffering from any of these, try the following.
1. The Quantitative Complex
This is when impact gets reduced to metrics (people served, views gained, grants won) and those metrics start to define success.
Try this: Before committing to a metric, ask: what is the change we actually want to see and is this number a good stand-in for it? Pair quantitative data with narrative, context, or lived experience. If the number can be gamed or misunderstood, it almost certainly needs supplementing.
2. The Scale Complex
This is the assumption that more = better. You equate reach, revenue, or replication with impact, even when it dilutes your purpose.
Try this: For every growth decision, ask: does this deepen or dilute our values? Consider how to scale your values, not just your programmes. Small, principled collaborations may create more systemic change than a larger footprint.
3. The Compartmentalisation Complex
This is when “impact” lives separately from the rest of your operations, treated as a department, a report, or a campaign, not a throughline.
Try this: Bring your values into every operational choice: the stories you cover, the videos you script, who you hire, who you work with, how you spend. If your programme uplifts communities but your supply chain or pay structure undermines them, that’s not impact, that’s offsetting.
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Get started
Use this adapted Eisenhower Matrix to identify where values are getting crowded out by urgency or optics.
X-axis: Values alignment (low → high)
Y-axis: External pressure to deliver (low → high)
This helps surface where you’re doing work that looks good (e.g. to funders, boards, platforms) but doesn’t feel right (or vice versa).
Quadrants:
High pressure + low alignment = performative effort High pressure + high alignment = core strategic focus Low pressure + high alignment = undervalued values work Low pressure + low alignment = cut or delegate
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🪁 PARALLEL PLAY 🪁
Three objects of cognitive desire
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🌊 WAVE GOODBYE 🌊
If you are arriving at this after a summer break and you feel a little overwhelmed by the months ahead, firstly: you are not alone. Most of us are feeling this.
Secondly: you’re allowed to slow down, reflect, and gently (or drastically) change course on something if it doesn’t feel right, no matter what external pressure there may be.
Since I’ve been writing about values-based impact, it only feels fair to share my own strategy too. Here’s what I’m using to guide my decisions for the rest of the year:
Service over scale. Focus this newsletter on deep utility for the people it’s meant to serve, not visibility, sponsorship, or reach. Try to write for usefulness above all. Study through making. Continue my autodidactic YouTube education. Learn by doing. Make videos that give people permission. Read the comments, ignore the content studio dashboard (as much as is humanly possible). Presence over profit. Reduce the number of coaching and advisory clients so I can show up more fully for those I continue to serve. Lower income most likely, but higher impact. Creativity as flow. Make music for the sake of flow, not the Spotify algorithm. Release on my own terms. Let intuition and resonance guide what gets made and shared. Attention as intention. Treat attention as a limited resource. Step away from LinkedIn. Unsubscribe from all but the most essential newsletters. Create space.
Thanks for reading, and for doing work that matters. As always, reply with questions, reflections, or counterpoints. Given that my social media presence will be more limited, I need all the validation signals I can get!
See you next week
Adam
P.S. If someone forwarded you this: welcome! You can subscribe here to get the next one.
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