Measuring Impact: Evaluating Success in the Pursuit of Doing Good Better

We have all thought about those moments where we all thought we would be successful one time in our life and that is why we work effortlessly day and night in whichever criteria/​industry you are in. Every student always wants to make it by passing their exams, getting an attachment, and finally getting a job when done with school. An employee rates their success through the projects they have completed, the tasks they have been able to complete, and how satisfied the client and the boss is. So after that, they can easily say they have had a successful month.

We must all accept that we all have different definitions of success and we may only focus on one definition here but in the broad spectrum, I hope we will all understand.

According to Wikipedia success is the state of meeting a defined range of expectations. It may be viewed as the opposite of failure. The criteria for success depend on context and may be relative to a particular observer or belief system.

Success is important as it allows us to feel we have completed sth and it has worked out well according to how we had envisioned it, this ideally brings about confidence and a feeling of fulfillment, and people also benefit from whatever successful achievement you have made.

Now even though success is really good there are times when we all have to go to the drawing board and look at was that success was effective, whether will it last long term or whether was it just a short-term success, and where can we improve this success so that we can make it better for people around us and even generations to come from this.

Let’s consider an organization focused on providing services to construction sites around Nairobi, Kenya. After establishment, they obviously had to go the marketing route and market their products and services. In case those marketing efforts were successful by bringing in more clients then the campaigns would be effective and successful and that would be termed as a successful campaign. But we must remember times change and so do people. So the same marketing actions that were taken then could not be used now or at a later date. They have to sit and evaluate what made it successful, what has changed, what can they use now to make it more successful, and how better would their services help other people.

Evaluation is really important as it helps us gain valuable insights into the effectiveness of our initiatives, identifies areas for improvement, and adapts their strategies accordingly. This iterative process allows us to enhance our impact and achieve better outcomes in their pursuit of doing good.

CASE SCENARIO:

In 2020 we had the real monster in the room and that was COVID-19. We may not tell much about it as so many countries were affected and so many people lost their lives either when they contracted the deadly disease or soon after they received the great vaccine. We can all agree that that moment was tough for most people. Some of us ask, “Should I take the vaccine it has just been developed some months ago.” Some of us were quite skeptical about the vaccine and that might have prevented so many people from having it. As many may say any risk is frightening and some people avoided it as much as they would. There are reports that have since then come out to show that the vaccine has had some very detrimental effects on some people and even caused loss of life for some.

The effect of the vaccine may have had its positive side but we cannot ignore the negatives. The amount of time and effort it took to develop the vaccine how fast it was rolled out and the amount of cancellations people got from saying anything negative about it might have raised some eyebrows. We cannot deny the vaccine itself had some great effect and that cannot be ignored but it is high time we evaluate its success and failures and even get scientists to have a greater look at it and make adjustments that will help us avoid any future cases of the same.


According to Paul Goepfert, M.D., director of the Alabama Vaccine Research Clinic, “Many people worry that these vaccines were ‘rushed’ into use and still do not have full FDA approval — they are currently being distributed under Emergency Use Authorizations,” Goepfert said. “But because we have had so many people vaccinated, we actually have far more safety data than we have had for any other vaccine, and these COVID vaccines have an incredible safety track record. There should be confidence in that.”

No comments.