Co-Design Lessons from COMPACT
Context
Co-design has become a buzzword in impact measurement. At Urbis, we define genuine co-design as involving the communities who are delivering, and who are impacted by programs or services, in deciding what should be measured, with which audiences, and how this should be implemented.
We worked with Multicultural NSW and over 30 community partners in designing the impact measurement approach for Multicultural NSW’s Community Partnership Action, or COMPACT, program.
Approach
By undertaking an iterative co-design approach via several stakeholder workshops, we saw several positive outcomes. These included: building evaluation capacity among Multicultural NSW and community partners; securing support for data collection, results and subsequent advice; strengthening relationships among partners; and critically, mitigation of risk to the communities involved. The genuine commitment to codesign among Urbis, Multicultural NSW and the community partners both informed the ongoing continuous program improvement, as well as helped secure support for the future expansion of COMPACT.
“Bringing our clients along on this process was important not only in giving them a sense of participation and ownership, but in creating a sense of identity for the COMPACT program itself.”
