Common Outcomes Case Study – Ethos Foundation
Background:
Ethos Foundation have been a core supporter and active participant in the movement towards common outcomes for all babies, children and young people since 2024.
Ethos Foundation is working towards a mission to improve early childhood outcomes in the UK by uniting diverse coalitions and partners. The foundation is currently working on its vision to eradicate child poverty by 2036 through a spend down endowment. Key features of this vision are a focus on early childhood inequality, and a belief that while there are lots of assets which already exist, there is more work needed to make these more than the sum of their parts and offer a more joined up approach to tackling child poverty.
As part of that work, Ethos have embedded the Common Outcomes Framework right in the heart of their strategy and impact approach:
‘The framework is a powerful tool to create a shared language – which is the basis of trying to work together towards impact’
Sarah Blackwood, Foundation Director
When Sarah came onto the team, part of her role was to work with her Board to develop a ten-year strategy for the Foundation endowment’s remaining spend down period. There were already some key themes the team knew would be included, such as a focus on early childhood, place, taking a systemic change lens.
The Common Outcomes Framework helped them to think a bit more deeply about what they meant by some of these terms – e.g. what do we mean when we say ‘early childhood’ and what forces are shaping these outcomes
‘We like this framework because it captures so clearly the things that evidence shows matters for children – being safe, healthy, engaged, learning and, of course, happy! It also shows these outcomes are interlinked. For example, it’s hard to learn effectively when you are not healthy or safe.’
Their current framing is that the Common Outcomes Framework helps them to identify ‘What matters?’; and they can position this firmly within their systemic approach to think more deeply about ‘What shapes what matters?’
What matters?
What shapes what matters?
Ethos work with the ‘systems’ of support, contexts and stories that shape these outcomes for children. Over the last few years, they have been able to grow a portfolio of partnerships around this structure.
It is a hugely diverse partnership, and the language needs to be relevant across all – so there is a need for flexibility. Rather than setting grant conditions around specific measures, Ethos have used the framework as one anchor to develop a standardised set of questions for partners to answer as part of their ongoing relational work.
From the start, partners have been supported to define what success looks like for them – using the Common Outcomes Framework as a common basis for discussion. Ethos are planning to embed the framework in the first portfolio convening to bring this discussion to life and help grow the portfolio into ‘more than the sum of its parts’.
‘The Common Outcomes Framework has been helpful in addressing a major risk of strategy development and systems change work – we can get lost in complexity. This has been a powerful tool (one that is well tested and refined) which has managed to set boundaries around the systems we’re trying to work with and help our collective head space.’
You can read more about Sarah’s work in her blog here:
How we think about early childhood systems (right now) - Ethos Foundation