About the Authors

Dr Sarah Morton – sarah@captureimpact.co.uk

Sarah is an internationally recognised expert in understanding and capturing impact, with specialisms in research impact, work on children, families and violence against women. She has pioneered a contribution analysis approach to understanding and assessing impact, and supported hundreds of organisations to use the approach to embed evaluation and impact assessment. She has worked at whole system levels, as well as on projects and programmes including international development.
She is an Honorary Fellow at the University of Edinburgh and a qualified Mentor.


Dr Ailsa Cook – ailsa@ailsacook.com

Ailsa is a leader in the field of outcomes. Through her research and work with policy and practice, Ailsa has made a significant contribution to shifting the focus of public services in Scotland towards the outcomes that are important to citizens and communities. She has done this through:
- Research into the outcomes important to people who use services; the practice of outcome measurement and recording and the use of outcomes focused approaches across public services.
- Leading pioneering improvement programmes bringing organisations together to develop and improve practice in focusing on outcomes at programme, personal and population levels. Working with policy makers to ensure a focus on outcomes is supported by policy.
- Leading training and capacity building to understand and use evidence for outcomes.
- Evaluating innovative outcomes focused services and programmes using theory-based approaches to evaluation, particularly contribution analysis.
Ailsa is a co-originator of the Talking Points Personal Outcomes Approach, now used across thousands of organisations in Scotland and beyond.
Together, Sarah and Ailsa co-founded Matter of Focus and co-directed the company from 2017 to 2025. During this time, they supported hundreds of organisations to apply and embed the outcome and impact approach set out in this book.
