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Digital exclusion remains a significant challenge nationwide impacting one in five Australians. Communities and organisations are working on the ground to address the digital divide but often are not resourced to measure and communicate the changes they are making at a program or initiative level.

Digital exclusion remains a significant challenge nationwide impacting one in five Australians. Communities and organisations are working on the ground to address the digital divide but often are not resourced to measure and communicate the changes they are making at a program or initiative level.

The term digital inclusion refers to our relative opportunities to access, use and contribute to digital resources and life online. It can be about access to, and accessibility for all of, digital devices, the Internet and digital technologies; online connectivity including the quality and speed of connection; affordability such as costs of devices, online connection and data usage; digital skills, digital ability, information literacy and digital capability; online safety and privacy or beneficial outcomes of using the Internet.

Evaluation is an important means of learning, proving and improving the work we do. Accessing the knowledge, time and money to evaluate effectively is also one of the most common problems identified by social enterprises.

In evaluation circles, an indicator is best described as the measurable form of something. Indicators can be applied to all elements of an impact pathway, from inputs through to impacts, but are often used to define measurable forms of our goals for a particular activity.

There is a huge range of literature about theory of change to be found online. At its simplest, a theory of change is a means of visualising the way(s) in which we think a particular impact is created. This demonstrates 'pathways to impact' by showing how the inputs, activities, outputs and outcomes of an organisation or initiative link together. While simple in its essence, how we develop a theory of change can have a big effect on its value and usefulness.

Taking a few early steps to make your social enterprise evaluation successful will ensure that your time and resources are used wisely. While specific evaluation goals and needs between social enterprises vary, current research identifies four common broad steps:

Ian Boorman, Dr Kate Barrelle and Mikey Leung shared insights on opportunities and innovative activities for measuring and communicating impact that they are doing or would like to do.

Dr Kate Barrelle, Ian Boorman and Mikey Leung shared their perspectives on the biggest challenges organisations face in measuring and communicating impact.

Mikey Leung, Ian Boorman and Dr Kate Barrelle provided tips for those who are new to measuring and communicating impact and shared their take on the purpose of impact measurement and communication.