Slow Food Impact Framework
Strategic support to Slow Food International
From 2015-2025, Slow Food engaged an external consultant, Catalys, led by Ian Baker; worked with headquarters (Bra, Italy) and Brussels-based staff to establish an Impact Fraework, including a comprehensive set of tools for measuring and planning for Impact across the full range of Slow Food's activities, from communication to networks, projects and programmes. In addition to the concrete tools developed, Catalys worked to develop the organisation's internal capacities; through which work impact and evaluation thinking has been embedded within the organisation.
Having completed this decade long assignment, working with the Slow Food organisation globally, it is clear that the process of developing the organisation's Impact Framework has been fundamental to the process of cultural growth and transformation for which Slow Food were aiming. Given the complexity of Slow Food as a global NGO with activity in every continent, the work could also be characterised as network impact capacity building. A key element of the cultural change achieved was the organisation now appreciates for itself that “Impact harvesting” (i.e., gathering impact evidence, a term that resonates with Slow Food’s own food and farming focus), is just as important as fund raising for the organisation to achieve its mission and goals.
When Slow Food approached Catalys in 2015, they were seeking assistance in gaining a better understanding of their impacts and it has been a thoroughly fascinating journey. The work has involved:
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Getting to understand the Slow Food “business”, including who we needed to work with in order to achieve the desired changes. Underlying this was the question, “who are Slow Food”, which was harder to answer than might have been expected.
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Identifying the needs.
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Developing a suite of impact tools to meet the needs.
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Developing a programme-led approach to implementation and embedding.
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Establishing a group at the heart of the organisation who could champion the work on impact in their own work areas.
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Regular reporting – very important to ensure that everyone is aware of the progress being made.
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Ensuring visibility - using the reports, the development of new tools and the production of new impact findings, all as means to promote the work to the organisation as a whole.
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Passing on the torch - demonstrating that this work has always been about building Slow Food's internal capacity and that external assistance is no longer needed.
Stimulated by the pandemic, the impact journey has broadened to the wider network, with tools being promoted to groups across the world and the analysis messages shared with them too. Online impact workshops during the online edition of Terra Madre in 2020 were really popular and contributed to impact practice being more widely adopted across the global network.
Support was mostly organised through annual work programmes, a description of which can be viewed here. In addition, Catalys provided support to the following Slow Food projects (amongst others):
Altogether 10 annual support programmes were delivered successfully, as well as 5 separate free standing projects.
You can see more about Slow Food's exemplary work on impact here. Which includes their most recent impact report as well as quotes from Ian Baker of Catalys and King Charles III.