News
Today we are launching an updated, interactive Network Impact Toolkit. Shaped by more than five years of learning alongside our network partners, it is a practical guide for anyone who wants to understand how well a network is working.
Why networks and why tracking?
Networks are central to Small Foundation’s vision of a thriving Africa free from extreme poverty. By building trust and, ultimately, enabling collaboration, they create the links that help ecosystems become connected, transparent and learning. In doing so, they support the collective action that enterprises in sub-Saharan Africa, and then intermediaries that support them, need to thrive.
Tracking network progress
Tracking a network’s progress is crucial to its success, and it is about much more than reporting. Collecting data systematically helps network coordinators monitor members’ activities and needs so they can respond. It also shows funders and other stakeholders the value a network creates.
When Small Foundation began working with network partners ten years ago, simple methods and tools to track a network’s journey from fragmentation to collaboration did not exist.
In 2021 we published our first toolkit to help network coordinators monitor progress towards their goals. As our network partners grew and their requirements evolved, the toolkit needed to evolve as well. Since the release of our first toolkit, we have learned with and from our network partners, as well as from other experts supporting networks and collaboration. Feedback specifically noted a need for simple tools and an easy way to navigate them.
What’s new
The new toolkit:
• Lets coordinators build a customised download containing only the tools they need
• Explains how to use different types of information and how to communicate results
• Provides decision trees to help coordinators choose the most appropriate tools for their network’s stage
• Is editable, so coordinators can adapt tools to suit their needs
On the site, we have also included resources to help network coordinators identify methods for tracking network outcomes and impact. Case studies from several networks explore how coordinators have put the tools into practice. We are sharing these resources as part of Small Foundation’s journey to understand how systems change can be detected and tracked. There may be other approaches, and we welcome exchange around this particular area of work.
Who it’s for
The toolkit is written with network coordinators in mind. It helps them gather insight into a network’s performance and explain its impact to members, funders and other stakeholders. It guides users through the data that can be gathered, depending on the stage and size of the network, and outlines ways to do so. The toolkit enables users to build a plan that meets their own needs.
You can access the toolkit here.
We hope the toolkit will be useful to both our network partners and other network practitioners, helping them to support collaborations that lead to meaningful change. We welcome feedback on its content and the experience of using it, as well as suggestions for improvement.
The toolkit is part of our wider commitment to networks. To learn more about the networks Small Foundation supports and their role in contributing to thriving rural-impacting SME ecosystems, please see our 2025 Impact Report.
We would like to thank the numerous people and organisations who contributed to this toolkit.
“The African Food Fellowship has drawn on the Network Impact Toolkit to build a monitoring system based on four dimensions of network health: connectivity, participant experience, emergent activity and collaborative infrastructure. Each dimension now has its own tool and key performance indicator. An external evaluation added further insight through outcome harvesting, interviews and a representative 2026 survey of Fellows.”
