The Collective Impact Assessment Tool (CIAT) is designed to measure how well partnerships deliver on Project or Learning City activities in order to assess Collective Impact.

CIAT assesses Collective Impact by measuring the level of partner engagement and contribution to a project and rating its level of achievement and sustainability based on how well it has met its agreed outcome measures. It can also be used as an indicator of community learning and capacity building.

The City of Melton’s Community Learning Board commissioned CIAT to evaluate and track Learning City or Learning Community progress and the collective impact being made on priority areas for action.[1] CIAT is designed to be practical, manageable, and relevant for local governments or any organisations that use partnerships to deliver strategic priorities and projects. This could include smaller single focus projects or larger multi-dimensional social or economic ventures for communities - for example Council Plans or Community Learning Plans. 

How does CIAT work?

CIAT generates consistent numerical data about subjective findings. This data can carry equal weight as other research and data sources utilised by local governments and organisations. CIAT calculates how well a partnership delivers on its priority project outcomes or goals. It measures the level of engagement and the level of contribution each partner makes individually and collectively. It also rates how well a project has gone in achieving its outcome measures and its sustainability. These are visually represented on a collective impact assessment graph. The ability to measure the impact of partnership projects is of increasing importance as local governments and organisations recognise the positive economic and social benefits of engaging a community in lifelong learning.

Accessing CIAT

It is recommended that you read the User Guide before accessing CIAT (available at https://meltonciat.com).

The User Guide outlines two options for accessing CIAT:

• Option 1 incurs an annual fee of $300 AUD, but provides easy access for users who do not have direct access to their server or to IT specialists.
• Option 2 is free.

Details as follows:

Option 1

PURCHASE HOSTING and INSTALLATION

If you are not able to host and install an instance of CIAT on a server available to you, there is a company called Preflight that hosts / installs instances of CIAT for clients on their servers.

This service is offered at $300 AUD annually.

For that fee they will install an instance of CIAT on one of their servers and liase with you the client to put it on a domain or subdomain that is acceptable to you. Once it is in place they will supply you the Administrator username and password and off you go.

If you would like to talk to someone about setting this up please email Jaryd Fletcher on: [email protected]

Option 2

DEPLOY THE SOFTWARE

You can deploy the software for no fee. If an organisation has an IT Department or a separate web manager who downloads CIAT but will not be involved in projects it is essential that they set up a project and enrol at least one partner and allocate them as the Project Manager. It is also possible to give them Administrator rights.

Details for deployment are in the User Guide at: https://meltonciat.com

For further information or assistance in using CIAT

Contact Shanti Wong: [email protected]