Vera Solutions hosted our fifth (and largest) virtual Amp Impact Summit in December. Clients, partners, and Verites from across the global Amp Impact community gathered to exchange best practices, collaborate on the Amp Impact roadmap, and continue to lead the way in advancing accountability and data management in the social sector.
Since launching on the Salesforce AppExchange in 2017, Amp Impact’s footprint has grown markedly, now used by more than 80 organizations globally to manage over $8.5 billion in programs and grants, with more than 7,300 monthly active users.
A Kickoff to the Summit: A Few Reflections for World AIDS Day and the Power of Data
Vera Co-founder and CEO, Zak Kaufman, kicked off the summit, which took place on World AIDS Day, by reflecting on the HIV pandemic and his experience as an epidemiologist working on the front lines of HIV prevention in Sub-Saharan Africa.
“The HIV pandemic provides an important and interesting case study on the power of data… The power of data to mobilize resources, to recognize opportunities for improvement, to democratize information, and to optimize programs.”
– Zak Kaufman, Co-Founder and CEO, Vera Solutions
A Few Words from Salesforce.org
Salesforce.org Vice President of Industry Advisors for EMEA, Cyril Treacy, reflected on the challenges nonprofits encounter when measuring and tracking their impact. He also shared how Amp Impact serves as a single source of truth for impact measurement, informing funders and donors about the impact of their grants and contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Client Spotlight: American Red Cross
American Red Cross (ARC) sought to standardize project portfolio management (PPM) and Grants Management practices, replacing an eight-year-old custom Salesforce system. ARC conducted a rigorous build-buy assessment, evaluating 30 products and vendors, ultimately settling on Amp Impact for its flexibility and scalability.
“One of the factors that came into play in the products we started to find, and Amp Impact being the one we chose, was scalability across other lines of business for American Red Cross.”
– Bernard Vicary, Senior Director of Strategy, Quality & Learning, American Red Cross
The system, expected to launch in summer 2023, followed an agile methodology with design workshops, three ‘build’ sprints, testing, data migration, and training.
Client Spotlight: Plan International
Plan International has been working with Amp Impact since 2020, calling their system PMERL (Project Management, Monitoring Evaluation Research and Learning). They developed an AOGD (Areas of Global Distinctiveness) framework, consolidating outcomes, outputs, and indicators used by country offices. By July 2021, the system had over 2,000 users across 59 country offices and regional hubs.
“For Plan staff, [Amp Impact] is a game-changer. This did not exist before and it comes with great success.”
– Michaela Larson, M&E Systems Business Analyst, Plan International
Client Spotlight: Michael & Susan Dell Foundation
One of Amp Impact’s earliest adopters, the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation (MSDF) has been using Amp Impact to track outcomes across hundreds of grants in India, South Africa, and the US since 2017. Since then, MSDF has tracked outcomes for 578 projects, 2,126 reporting periods, and 420+ standard indicators contributing to 85 organizational objectives.
“When we implemented Amp Impact, it was the first time in the foundation’s history that we were moving from thinking about what works on the grant level to defining a measurement and evaluation strategy that informs the foundation’s strategy at large.”
– Semonti Basu, Measurement & Evaluation Director, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation
Today, Amp Impact forms an important part of MSDF’s technology framework, serving as the source of truth for indicator and result data, with grantees capturing progress reports in a portal built on Salesforce Experience Cloud.
Amp Impact Roadmap Highlights: Indus Sneak Peek
Vera Senior Product Manager, Gabi Espinoza, led a live demo preview of the soon-to-launch Amp Impact Indus Release. Participants then joined breakout sessions facilitated by members of the Vera Product team, delving into key focus areas like data aggregation, data sharing and publishing, workplanning, and visualization.
Peer Learning Breakout Sessions
The Summit continued with two rounds of Peer Learning breakout sessions. Participants discussed eight topics: Rollout and Initial Change Management, Monitoring and Evaluation, Building a Data Driven Culture, Grants Management, Project/Program Management, Analytics and Data Visualization, Impact Data Sharing and Publishing, and Evolution of Monitoring Evaluation Strategies.
Thanks and Acknowledgements
“Thank you so much for organizing this event, Vera team! I am excited for the peer learning group and staying in touch with other Amp users.”
– Amp Impact Summit Attendee
A special thank you to our amazing Partners, to Salesforce.org, and to our clients for joining the Summit. Special thanks to American Red Cross, Plan International, and Michael and Susan Dell Foundation for sharing their journeys with the global community.
About Amp Impact
Amp Impact is a Salesforce-based solution for portfolio management and impact measurement. Built on common needs observed during hundreds of digital transformation projects, Amp Impact enables NGOs, grantmakers, and multilateral organizations to trade complex spreadsheets for a flexible, friendly, and integrated technology solution, now used in more than 150+ countries to manage data for over $8.5 billion in development programs and grants.