A Universal Framework to support Impact Measurement, Funding Bids and Reporting
Does your work support individuals to raise awareness of, reflect upon, practise or make progress in the essential skills?
The Skills Builder Universal Framework for Essential Skills provides a shared language and common approach to building essential skills to address the skills gap across contexts, and at every stage of life - in order to achieve collective impact. Together, we work to level the playing field so that everyone can build eight essential skills to thrive:
Created in collaboration with Skills Builder, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, Business in the Community and Gatsby Foundation, the Framework stops the essential skills from being hazy concepts by breaking each one down into 16 teachable, measurable steps.
The Framework provides a clear and structured ‘roadmap’ for progression over time. By getting started at Step 0, the Framework steps increase in complexity to intermediate, advanced and then mastery level by Step 15.
The Skills Builder Partnership
The Skills Builder Partnership is a UK-based global best practice network of over 750 non-profit organisations, employers, schools and colleges, working towards a shared mission: that one day everyone will be able to build the essential skills to be successful.
To find out more about the partnership and our Collective Impact, visit: skillsbuilder.org/impact
Funding bids
In a funding bid, some main points to include are:
- As a member of the Partnership, you will be contributing to system-wide change.
- Membership will give you the opportunity for cross-sector collaboration - a key feature that funders look for in applications (Institute of Fundraising, 2019.)
- By adopting the shared language of the Framework, you can offer consistent support to beneficiaries who may have access to multiple organisations which are helping them to develop their essential skills.
- Embedding the Framework, which has been externally verified twice, allows you to robustly measure the impact of your activities.
Telling your Story: Impact Measurement and Reporting
How can the essential skills be measured?
- This online tool is free for individuals to benchmark themselves against the Framework by answering up to 16 questions per skill.
- A 5-point Likert scale is used to generate a skill score.
- Individuals receive a report of top 3 strengths and 3 areas for improvement.
- Scores can be revisited and reevaluated to measure progress over time.
- Free educational tools and resources.
- Track progress across groups and cohorts.
- Download snapshots and templates for easy reporting.
- Use recommended resources to observe the skill steps in action and track progress.
How can the steps support rich and robust feedback?
- Visit skillsbuilder.org/framework
→ Click a skill → Choose a step → Build it - Skills-based questions to guide individuals to clearly articulate learning and progress as a result of programmes/provision.
- Questions can be used by beneficiaries and staff to tell a holistic story of your impact.
- Embed the language of the steps into your own survey and reports.
A recent evaluation has shown that participants make on average between 1 and 1.5 steps of progress across all eight of the essential skills, as a result of our 6 week-programme. This demonstrates the accelerated progress achieved through our programme, in comparison to the 0.72 steps of progress a young person can expect to make over the course of a year, without any targeted support (Skills Builder, 2019.)
- 93% of business leaders say essential employability skills are important for improving young people’s employment prospects in the post-Covid jobs market (Careers & Enterprise Company, 2020)
- 90% of young people think essential skills are important to overcome difficulty and adversity in wider life
- 97% of UK teachers say that essential skills are as important as academic outcomes for their students’ future success; yet 72% say that not enough is done to build them (Sutton Trust, 2017)
How can direct support through Skills Builder membership be included in a funding application?
Standard membership + bespoke support in your priority areas:
- Impact measurement consultancy style support
- Benchmark admin accounts to support data tracking and analysis
- Quality assurance of your programme/provision’s impact on our Directory
- Aligning your programme(s) to embed the Universal Framework
- Bespoke capacity-building support for your team / stakeholders
- Access to a suite of tools and resources to support skills development
- Collaborative sector networks and Partnership events
