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Some programs work directly with the people they serve. Others work through someone else first: training teachers who then teach students, supporting caregivers who then improve children's health, or building the capacity of volunteers who then serve community members.
If your program fits that second description, you are doing intermediary work. This article explains how to represent that in your True Impact impact model.
Step 1: Identify your end beneficiary
Your end beneficiary is the person whose life ultimately improves because of your program, not necessarily the person you work with directly.
Ask yourself: If our program disappeared tomorrow, whose life would get worse?
That is your end beneficiary. They will be represented in the Succeed stage of your model.
Examples:
| What your program does | Who you work with directly | End beneficiary |
|---|---|---|
| Train teachers | Teachers | Students |
| Support caregivers of infants | Caregivers | Infants |
| Train volunteers for disaster response | Volunteers | Community members |
| Provide capacity building to nonprofits | Nonprofit staff | The communities those nonprofits serve |
This question will be asked during the Impact Report Builder section of your report:
Step 2: Select your end beneficiary in the builder, then select "indirectly"
In the Impact Model Builder, you will be asked to choose your end beneficiaries. Select the group whose life ultimately improves, for example infants or students.
You will then be asked how you serve them. Select indirectly. This tells the platform you are using an intermediary model.
You will then be asked to name who you directly reach, for example caregivers or teachers. This group becomes your intermediary and will be represented in the Reach stage.
Step 3: Understand who goes in each stage
This is the most important thing to understand about intermediary models:
Reach, Learn, and Act always follow the same group: your intermediary. Succeed shifts to your end beneficiary.
| Stage | Who it represents | What it captures |
|---|---|---|
| Reach | Intermediary (e.g., teachers) | Number of intermediaries your program directly serves |
| Learn | Intermediary (e.g., teachers) | Knowledge or skills the intermediary gains |
| Act | Intermediary (e.g., teachers) | Behavior changes the intermediary makes |
| Succeed | End beneficiary (e.g., students) | Improvements in the end beneficiary's life |
Direct service model (for comparison): If your program serves end beneficiaries directly, the same group appears across all four stages: Reach, Learn, Act, and Succeed.
Step 4: Use your best available data
You will need two key numbers:
- How many intermediaries you reached (for Reach, and any Learn/Act stages you include)
- How many end beneficiaries experienced improved outcomes (for Succeed)
Tracking intermediaries is usually straightforward. Tracking end beneficiary outcomes is harder, but here are ways to approach it:
- Ask your intermediaries. Teachers, caregivers, and volunteers often track outcomes of those they serve. Use this sample outreach tool to gather data from your stakeholders.
- Use research. If direct measurement is not possible, use existing studies or sector data to estimate end outcomes. This is a valid Evidence-Based Estimate.
- Use your past data. If you have run this program before and have historical outcome data, use it.
If none of these are currently possible, that is okay. Select Guess as your measurement type and note your reasoning. This is a useful signal about where to invest in data collection over time.
Step 5: Capturing indirect beneficiaries
Sometimes your program affects people beyond the direct intermediaries and end beneficiaries you track, for example siblings of the infants you serve or other community members who benefit indirectly.
You can capture these using the "People indirectly benefit" indicator in your model. This is separate from your primary Succeed outcomes and allows you to acknowledge broader impact without inflating your direct numbers.
Examples
The following table illustrates how we would represent various types of programs in an impact model:
|
Intervention type |
Who is immediately served? Reach |
Who is the end beneficiary and how are their lives improved? Succeed |
|
A program that trains teachers |
Teachers being trained |
Students improving their academic performance |
|
A program that trains volunteers to respond to disasters |
Volunteers being trained |
Community members improving safety |
|
An organization that regrants to local community organizations |
Grant recipients such as homeless shelters, local churches, and community cent |
1. Beneficiaries attain, retain, or improve housing 2. Congregation improves wellbeing 3. Community members gain safe and affirming environments |
|
An organization that incubates social change leadership and strategy |
Organizations, leaders, and impact entrepreneurs in the local ecosystem who advocate for policy change |
Community members that benefit from policy change and power building and ultimately gain financial strength |
|
An organization that co-designs programs to address community needs |
Stakeholders involved in the co-design process |
Community members then impacted by the program(s) created to achieve or improve food security |
|
A Housing Assessment for the city planning office |
Influencers activated through housing study |
Number of people who gain housing if study recommendations are implemented |
Finally, to fully illustrate the example of a teacher training program and how that would ultimately look in a True Impact report, review the following logic model example:
| Stage | Indicator |
|
Program Development |
1 program resource developed
|
|
Reach |
100 educators reached
|
|
Succeed |
2,000 students improve academic performance
|
