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Our playbook is a comprehensive guide to applying the Impact Garden in various contexts

Dive deep into the framework with our self-paced modules and practical exercises

Reimagine Your Work as a Living Ecosystem

The Impact Garden framework reimagines your work as a vibrant, living ecosystem. Moving beyond linear logic models, it helps you map out what’s truly thriving, what needs tending, and how transformation unfolds in your work across 10 interconnected dimensions, for example:

The vision (Sunlight): Your shared purpose that energises and guides growth.
Resources (Soil): The raw ingredients and assets you and your partners invest.
Meaningful Interactions (Pollination): How people engage with your work and each other to create new value.
Learning Loops (Water): The guiding questions and processes that nourish adaptation, renewal, and continuous learning.

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Who is it for?

Leaders, teams and changemakers across sectors
Program and project managers, organisational developers
Funders, and ecosystem builders.
All seeking to design, implement, and evaluate initiatives through a holistic, life-centred lens.

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What’s included?

Access to the comprehensive Impact Garden framework, step-by-step guidance on its application, practical tools and templates (e.g. printable canvases, Mural boards), and insights from real-world case studies.

Access

The Impact Garden is openly licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). You are free to use, adapt, and build upon it—provided you credit Unity Effect and share any derivative works under the same open license.

With Unity Effect, we have a partner who understands our approach very well and with whom we can tackle impact measurement and management (IMM) for our project in an agile and adaptive way. The regenerative impact measurement approach in particular fits very well with our vision at SEND e.V. Through close collaboration with Unity Effect and their outstanding support, we can learn a lot ourselves to build our own competence and expertise in the IMM area!

Martha Marik

Project Manager, SEND e.V.

Thanks to Sabrina's open and compassionate nature, I felt very well supported and accompanied thoughout my coaching process. Her great understanding and empathy ensured that I was able to completely free myself from external circumstances and thus go home with fascinating insights into my personal wishes and priorities.

Anna v. Spitczok

I'd say that I've learned how to treat myself as someone who has value. I realised that I can make a good use of my inner potential only when take responsibility and find courage to step up as a leader when it's needed. Also, I've learned what such a leader should be like in our complex, and yet exiting times of rapid changes and endless diversities. Thus, now I know what I should strive for and even what to do to get there. Becoming the best friend of myself and more empathetic with other, along with having all necessary tools to contribute to better team work and any kind of relationship is so empowering. Most importantly this experience has made me even more keen on continuing sort of a"Leadership Journey" throughout my life.

Artem Ponomarenko

We had the privilege of working with Jannik to implement Unity Effect's Capacity Compass and Impact Garden in the Bopa DiPeo fellowship. He helped us identify relevant items and clarify what capacities and capabilities we wanted to focus on and measure. As a model, the Capacity Compass provided enough structure and rigour while also adapting to fit our context and the diversity of each fellow's experience. We look forward to continued work with Unity Effect in the coming years!

Elsa Henderson Impact Garden and Capacity Compass

Elsa Henderson

Co-Founder, Circle Generation

Our approach

Our approach is participatory and hands-on, adapting the Impact Garden to your specific needs. The framework is a powerful and versatile tool for:

Impact Evaluation: Measuring what matters for your long-term success.
Strategic planning: Creating the roadmap for your team or organisation - rooted in your work culture and guiding principles.
Network & Ecosystem Building: Making visible what deeply nurtures your network or ecosystem, and creating momentum for joint action. ‍
Project & Product Design: Kick-starting or deepening a co-creation process - with intentionality and care.

We got you covered

We want to make it as easy as possible for you to put the Impact Garden into action! Please use one of these options to get started:

Our playbook is a comprehensive guide to applying the Impact Garden in various contexts

Download playbook

Dive deep into the framework with our self-paced modules and practical exercises

Explore the free online course

Bring the Impact Garden to your team for a tailored, hands-on session on strategic planning, evaluation, or project design

Request a workshop

Curious how the Impact Garden can specifically address your organisation’s challenges and goals? Use our free consultation meeting

Schedule consultation

Past Projects

Social Entrepreneurship Network Germany

Impact evaluation of Google.org grant for inclusive entrepreneurship

In 2022, the Social Entrepreneurship Network Germany (SEND e.V.) received a grant from Google.org to “create new standards for an inclusive social enterprise sector in Germany”. Unity Effect’s role is to evaluate the entire project.

> Read more

Unity Effect

Purpose Journey

> Read more

Bosch

Systemic Onboarding for senior leaders

We support Helga Brüggemann (Systemische Beratung Düsseldorf) in hosting bi-annual training for senior leaders joining Bosch.

> Read more

Curious to see more of our work?

Check out our portfolio to see all past projects.

See all projects

Blog

Our Resources

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Don’t fake it till you make it: overcoming imposter syndrome

If you are a leader, or a human, or a human who is leading, you have probably experienced this in some form or other. It’s there in the moments when you think: How the heck did I get myself into this position?

The Art of Measuring Change

What are your associations with words such as “measurement”, “evaluation” or “indicator”? For many people these words sound annoying at best, and there are good reasons for it. Yet it can be a deeply empowering process that reveals hidden opportunities and structural challenges, creating empathy between groups of people.

Reclaiming Choice and Agency in a Networked World

This article explores the difference between choices and decisions, why awareness of choice matters, as well as the different levels of networks & systems and how to navigate them with agency. We offer reflective exercises and actionable ways to engage choice for creating systemic impact.