Grant guide
Impact evidence without overclaiming
Impact evidence helps a funder judge whether a project is needed, plausible and worth supporting. Good evidence is specific, proportionate and honest about limits.
Teams deciding where to spend application time
Applicants preparing need statements, outcome claims, evaluation plans and reporting evidence.
Make the first review more concrete
Understand what impact evidence means in grant funding.
Review workflow
What FundingLens helps you do
Keep source facts, caveats and next actions together so your team can decide what deserves attention before application work starts.
Use need evidence to show why the project matters, baseline evidence to show the starting point and monitoring evidence to track change.
Combine qualitative and quantitative evidence where useful: numbers can show scale, while stories and feedback can explain experience.
Avoid claiming causation from weak data; explain contribution, assumptions and uncertainty where that is more honest.
Readiness checks
- Need, baseline and outcome evidence are separated.
- Data source and date are recorded.
- Qualitative and quantitative evidence are proportionate.
- Attribution and causality limits are visible.
- Claims in draft notes have citations or evidence owners.
Eligibility caveats
- Monitoring data alone may not prove the project caused an outcome.
- Impact claims should match project scale, budget and evidence quality.
- AI wording should not invent evidence or remove uncertainty.
Source references
Use NCVO guidance to explain impact evidence, learning and accountability without implying proof of causation from weak data.
Official sourceHeritage Fund evaluation guidanceUse the funder guidance to distinguish outputs, outcomes, monitoring, evaluation and evidence requirements in practical grant reporting.
Official sourceMagenta Book quality in policy impact evaluationUse QPIE guidance to flag attribution, causality and evidence-quality caveats when applicants make impact claims.
Related FundingLens pages
Outputs and outcomes explained for grant applications, with practical checks for indicators, baselines, evidence and reporting.
Grant guideMonitoring and evaluation in grantsMonitoring and evaluation explained for grants, covering delivery tracking, spend, indicators, evidence, reporting and learning.
Draft notes guideSource-cited draft notes for grant applicationsUse AI draft notes for grant preparation while keeping official source citations, caveats and human review clearly visible.