In everyday conversation, people use the terms “results”, “outcomes” and “impacts” to mean essentially the same thing – that is, what happened as a consequence of what you did. However, evaluators make distinctions between the terms “outcomes” and “impacts.” Those distinctions reflect whether or not the evaluator used particular quantitative methods to determine not just what happened, but its cause. So, in evaluation the term “outcome” refers to a particular state of being (a set of conditions, experiences or behaviors – that is the goal for change or improvement). When reporting the results of an evaluation, the outcome refers to what was achieved. For example, an outcome could be “all children are reading on grade level by the end of third grade,” or “the school system is fully prepared to support children of immigrants and refugees when they first enter the school system.”

By contrast, impact in evaluation refers to the level of change achieved by a particular intervention. When reporting results, impact answers the question, “what happened, taking into account how much would have happened without this par [...]