The IMM­PACT Guide didn’t just help wellplayd mea­sure impact – it helped them build it into the way they oper­ate. Founder Jan­i­na Jaspers shares how the tool gives ear­ly-stage orga­ni­za­tions direc­tion, a com­mon lan­guage, and a prac­ti­cal path for putting impact into every­day action.

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Jan­i­na Jaspers, Founder & CEO of wellplayd

When we start­ed wellplayd, we had one goal: give sports clubs and fed­er­a­tions every­thing they need to cre­ate safe, inclu­sive, and integri­ty-dri­ven  envi­ron­ments – with­out bury­ing any­one in paper­work.

We came in with strong expe­ri­ence in impact man­age­ment, but build­ing a start­up is a dif­fer­ent game entire­ly. Pri­or­i­ties shift­ed by the week. We need­ed to stay laser-focused on what our tar­get group urgent­ly need­ed, because that’s how star­tups sur­vive. At the same time, we couldn’t lose sight of our big­ger mis­sion. We need­ed a clear path to long-term change. That meant think­ing beyond today’s chal­lenges, under­stand­ing how our actions spark real trans­for­ma­tion over time – and know­ing what to adjust when the impact isn’t show­ing up yet.

The IMM­PACT Guide as a through­line

That’s where the IMM­PACT Guide real­ly changed things. What ini­tial­ly looked like just anoth­er frame­work quick­ly became the thread tying every­thing togeth­er. The biggest wins for us:

• A shared lan­guage for talk­ing about impact
• Clear respon­si­bil­i­ties across gov­er­nance, man­age­ment, strat­e­gy, and com­mu­ni­ca­tion
• A way to see where we cur­rent­ly stand on our impact jour­ney

It’s built for young, evolv­ing orga­ni­za­tions, and it brings a lot of clar­i­ty.

In prac­tice, this meant, for exam­ple, sep­a­rat­ing key ques­tions: Where and how do we plan and run impact mea­sure­ment? (Man­age­ment). And where do those insights actu­al­ly influ­ence strate­gic deci­sions? (Gov­er­nance).

What it looks like in prac­tice

For us, that meant sep­a­rat­ing key ques­tions: Where and how do we plan and run impact mea­sure­ment? (Man­age­ment). And where do those insights actu­al­ly influ­ence strate­gic deci­sions? (Gov­er­nance).

We also cre­at­ed an inter­nal impact mod­el that lets us adjust our direc­tion based on real results.  A sim­pli­fied ver­sion helps us com­mu­ni­cate clear­ly with part­ners and fun­ders.

Impact that lasts

We don’t have to open the IMM­PACT Guide every day any­more, but its log­ic is still in our heads. It’s become our inter­nal com­pass, help­ing us not just describe impact, but live it.

If you gen­uine­ly want impact at the core of your orga­ni­za­tion, this Guide is an incred­i­ble foun­da­tion. Ber­tels­mann Stiftung, PHI­NEO, Bun­desver­band Impact Invest­ing (BVII) and Social Entre­pre­neur­ship Net­zw­erk Deutsch­land (SEND) have done some­thing rare: They’ve turned com­plex the­o­ry into a prac­ti­cal sys­tem any­one can use. It helps orga­ni­za­tions under­stand their impact, man­age it inten­tion­al­ly, and make it vis­i­ble – a real leap for­ward.