New tool for community engagement: People First Impact Method facilitator’s toolkit

The People First Impact Method at work in Haiti, 2010. Photo © PFIM

Illustrating the people-centred approach that the Sphere Handbook advocates, PFIM is a methodology aimed at giving communities a voice. Its goal is to engage and listen to them fully, putting people and not projects or organisations at the centre of impact measurement.

“Agencies are often too focused on data. People want to talk about their experience. When they have an opportunity for exchange in an open atmosphere, they appreciate it. With this approach, people talk about changes we don’t normally hear about,” says Paul O’Hagan, an independent humanitarian practitioner and one of the tool’s developers.

While being primarily a methodology for assessing and evaluating impact, PFIM can support project and programme design, monitoring and evaluation, accountability, policy and strategy development.

PFIM has been field-tested over the past four years by nearly 600 national field staff from 240 organisations in eight countries, involving more than 5,600 community members.

PFIM helps “build high levels of local contextual awareness, ownership of findings and responsibility for improved performance among those involved,” its creators say. “It also assists field teams to form relationships of respect, trust and openness with communities.”