End Child Poverty seeks to achieve impact through four key strategic actions: Mitigating Human Root Causes of Poverty through Theological Reflection, Prayer and Action; Combatting Structural Causes of Poverty through Interfaith Advocacy and Lobbying; Supporting Grassroots Projects with promising outcomes for child poverty and Building our internal capacity to deliver on mission.
The pursuit of these strategic actions provides us with the spheres from which to determine key results and outcomes. It was determined early that given our limited resources and reach, End Child Poverty would best pursue these strategic objectives by working as a catalyst through utilizing the GNRC membership, through building, joining or influencing alliances or networks of like spirited organizations, and through partnerships that promise us work at scale and depth in international and local contexts. As such the creation of these networks, coalitions and partner-hips, are a key intermediate result, a key indicator for potential impact.
We consider that our impact can be traced and captured from two inter-related vantage points, the first, our footprints and the second, our imprint. The footprint can be traced and captured by the reach of our activities in distance, in time and in the sheer number and scale. Of necessity, our imprint is superimposed on the footprint. However we trace our imprint not by the number of activities undertaken, but by the depth and quality of positive change that we can attribute to them. As an example, while we may engage numerous activities to help establish a coalition of inter-faith leaders in a region, it is the existence of the network itself and the reach of its influence that counts for impact.
So we can find networks of organisations or groups of individuals that have formed to end child poverty as a result of our work? What is the likely impact of the activities of these networks and groups in relation to child poverty? How much of the results we find be attributed to the work of End Child Poverty? Can we attribute certain behavior, or change in behavior, or activity of a partner to the efforts of End Child Poverty? How sustainable are these networks, groups, resulting behaviours or activities? What is the real likelihood of eradicating child poverty through these efforts and where would be the global and local evidence for it?
We also recognize that the real goal to end child poverty represents an intractable and deeply embedded challenge. The conditions from which child poverty spring are deeply entrenched and require extensive and profound societal change. As such the results and impacts we seek are of themselves intermediate in nature. The evidence for real outcomes will take time to build up and gather.
We are also acutely aware that the outcomes that we claim are also the result of a co-mingling of numerous other influences from the independent work of other agencies and actors.
To recap, what this means is that following our theory of how change happens, we first establish a vision- ending child poverty everywhere, to which we supply strategic and programmatic actions from a vantage point of mobilizing faith resources and from which we can follow our unique footprint and it’s imprint. Hopefully, much later we can extract outcomes- a lasting legacy for children.