untethered
impact
Bridging the gaps between
research |
programming |
communications |
to unleash your power
to make a difference.
untethered impact is a boutique, woman-owned research and design studio on a mission to
amplify the voices of people in vulnerable situations
and
support multilaterals, governments, and NGOs to:
| understand their constituents
| design innovative solutions
| tell beautiful and compelling stories
| expand their positive impact in the world.
We conduct research and create products that people understand and enjoy—
so your experiences and learning get shared, actioned, and used.
services.
Click to skip to a section, or scroll to see all of our offerings.
research.
Monitoring, evaluation, research, learning, knowledge management...M&E, MERL, MEL, MEAL, KM, CLA...
No matter how you refer to it,
we love learning.
and we get data.
Whether we draw on:
- literature reviews, systematic reviews, and evidence synthesis
- desk reviews and project/program retrospectives
- quantitative analysis of primary or secondary data
- in-depth qualitative assessments and participatory approaches
- detailed implementation data and information
- market systems resilience mapping and analysis
- geospatial data and mapping
- mixed-methods
we develop fit-for-purpose methods and conduct insightful analysis
to help you
uncover insights, identify gaps, and understand your impact.
storytelling.
share your insights. visualize your ideas.
As M&E specialists, data analysts, technical experts, and program staff, our clients are gifted at what they do. But many struggle to articulate themselves in ways that donors, partners, local populations, and other stakeholders can understand, easily digest, and act on.
Think of us as interpreters who get the nuances, complexities, and technical aspects of your work and can translate it—using clear and compelling writing, visual thinking, and design—to your chosen audiences to meet your objectives.
writing and editing.
turning technical into accessible.
While often integrated with our research services, we do offer standalone technical writing geared toward stakeholders with similar expertise. Need to share your insights and ideas with a wider audience? We also craft creative communications content for a range of final products. Simply share existing documents or your latest research, connect us with stakeholders for interviews, or have a conversation with us over a coffee. We'll handle the rest.
you did the heavy lifting. let us take it from here.
Already have a draft started? We excel in converting existing content drafted by non-native English speakers, technical staff, or multiple authors into accurate, streamlined, jargon-free final products ready for publication. We offer developmental, substantive, and copy editing to your internal editorial guidelines.
graphic design, data viz, and illustration.
Some people can digest text and data rapidly but most absorb information best through visuals. In fact, human brains process visuals 60,000x faster than text, and high-quality infographics are 30x more likely to be read than plain text. Since we're exposed to 5x more information today than we were 40 years ago, design and data visualization help your work cut through the noise.
show off your work.
As creative brand strategists, graphic designers, and studio artists, we package your work into eye-catching, on-brand final products that draw people into your work.
And by combining our eye for design with our sectoral knowledge, research backgrounds, and data visualization skills, we select and create clean, compelling, and accurate graphs, charts, maps, and infographics that emphasize your key messages and stick in readers' minds.
depict reality.
Despite efforts toward decolonization and localization, many design products don't reflect local cultures and environments. We can create custom illustrations and icons that more accurately portray the lives and locations of the people you work with.
storytelling.
share your insights. visualize your ideas.
As M&E specialists, data analysts, technical experts, and program staff, our clients are gifted at what they do. But many struggle to articulate themselves in ways that donors, partners, local populations, and other stakeholders can understand, easily digest, and act on.
Think of us as interpreters who get the nuances, complexities, and technical aspects of your work and can translate it—using clear and compelling writing, visual thinking, and design—to your chosen audiences to meet your objectives.
writing and editing.
turning technical into accessible.
While often integrated with our research services, we do offer standalone technical writing geared toward stakeholders with similar expertise. Need to share your insights and ideas with a wider audience? We also craft creative communications content for a range of final products. Simply share existing documents or your latest research, connect us with stakeholders for interviews, or have a conversation with us over a coffee. We'll handle the rest.
you did the heavy lifting. let us take it from here.
Already have a draft started? We excel in converting existing content drafted by non-native English speakers, technical staff, or multiple authors into accurate, streamlined, jargon-free final products ready for publication. We offer developmental, substantive, and copy editing to your internal editorial guidelines.
graphic design, data viz, and illustration.
Some people can digest text and data rapidly but most absorb information best through visuals. In fact, human brains process visuals 60,000x faster than text, and high-quality infographics are 30x more likely to be read than plain text. Since we're exposed to 5x more information today than we were 40 years ago, design and data visualization help your work cut through the noise.
show off your work.
As creative brand strategists, graphic designers, and studio artists, we package your work into eye-catching, on-brand final products that draw people into your work.
And by combining our eye for design with our sectoral knowledge, research backgrounds, and data visualization skills, we select and create clean, compelling, and accurate graphs, charts, maps, and infographics that emphasize your key messages and stick in readers' minds.
depict reality.
Despite efforts toward decolonization and localization, many design products don't reflect local cultures and environments. We can create custom illustrations and icons that more accurately portray the lives and locations of the people you work with.
interactive content and video.
PDFs. sometimes necessary. often boring.
Our signature interactive stories, also called interactive reports or "scrollytelling," combine narrative storytelling, rich multimedia, interactive data visualization such as graphs and maps, and other dynamic features. These engaging products capture readers' innate curiosity and put them in the driver's seat, where they can explore, investigate, and uncover the lessons you've learned for themselves.
transform your audience from passive readers into active learners.
Active engagement boosts readers' interest in your content, makes them personally vested in your message, and means they're more likely to remember and share it with others.
it's time to level up.
- repackage your content into multimedia-driven interactive stories to reach broader audiences
- develop dynamic maps and graphs for your website
- create dynamic presentations
- add interactive content to standard reports, fact sheets, and infographics
- produce animated and mixed-media explainer videos geared toward local communities or global stakeholders.
As one example, we created this animated video (also available in Somali) to amplify the voices of displaced women.
portfolio.
programming.
When done well, research, communications and programming work synergistically, so that your data and learning informs your programming, increases the global knowledge base of your community of practice, expands visibility of your work among stakeholders, mobilizes resources from donors, and feeds back into the communities where you work by amplifying marginalized voices and promoting behaviour change.
unleash new synergies.
Our project design offerings include and support:
- human-centered design
- evidence-driven and results-based management
- adaptive management
- theories of change
- logical frameworks
untether your impact.
convert skimmed to enjoyed, shared and used.
Our work has:
- amplified voices of displaced people to influence USAID, UN, and NGO programming
- clearly articulated and visually summarized the work of complex programmes
- informed a global research agenda
- convinced stakeholders of the value of evidence-based decision-making.
what can we do for you?
sectors.
Our projects typically cover multiple, interrelated topics spanning the humanitarian-development-peace continuum / HDP nexus.
disaster risk management and finance.
preparedness, early warning, remote monitoring, anticipatory and early action, disaster insurance and risk pools, shock-responsive safety nets
migration.
regular and irregular migration, forced displacement (refugees, internally displaced persons—IDPs, displacement affected communities—DACs)
humanitarian response.
food security monitoring, cash and voucher assistance, basic services (health, nutrition, WASH, education, protection) in emergency and protracted settings
hdp nexus.
resilience; displaced/host community dynamics; market systems; housing, land, and property (HLP); institutional integration; scalable safety nets
business and finance.
self-reliance, financial inclusion, livelihoods, (social) entrepreneurship, market systems, private sector partnerships, innovation
cross-cutting.
climate and environment, gender and women's empowerment, protection
We have also worked on social sector topics in developed countries, such as affordable housing, community culture, resort community issues, and mental health.
locations and settings.
global.
Our core team members have worked on projects around the world, including global projects with a thematic focus.
east africa.
We have extensive experience in Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, and South Sudan.
We maintain relationships with local research and field data collection teams in countries across East and Central Africa.
disaster-prone and conflict-affected areas.
We have worked in hard-to-reach and inaccessible areas as well as in emergency, protracted, and mixed situations.
other.
Our team members also have lived experience in:
- Morocco, Benin, Ghana
- the Philippines
- France (Calais), Italy, United Kingdom, USA
about.
Jenny Spencer is our Director and Principal Consultant. She is an analyst, wordsmith, data storyteller, and systems and visual thinker passionate about bridging the gap from data and information to buy-in and use. Her entrepreneurial nature and love of learning lead her to the frontier of established practice and evidence, to sectoral intersections, and to complex contexts that require creativity and innovation. Untethered Impact grew out of Jenny’s independent consulting practice, which included clients such as the UN Capital Development Fund, the World Bank, the Centre for Disaster Protection, Norwegian Refugee Council, and Community Data Platforms.
Jenny previously worked at Kimetrica, where she led a high-profile remote food security monitoring project in hard-to-reach areas for USAID, co-led and co-authored evaluations of refugees and host communities for WFP and UNICEF, and supported development of an innovative resilience measurement technique integrating geospatial and household data.
At Kimetrica, she also implemented systems to support corporate growth from single- to multi-national operations, administered a multi-million-dollar portfolio of USAID projects, backstopped country offices, and served informally as senior editor and data visualization specialist, reviewing the company’s full portfolio of M&E and DRM publications.
Jenny holds an MS in Applied Economics from Johns Hopkins University and a BA in International Affairs. She has lived in Kenya, Morocco, and the Philippines and currently resides in Colorado, USA.
Profiles of our other core team members are coming soon!
We draw on a carefully cultivated network of consultants with specialized technical and sectoral expertise and design skillsets to provide customized solutions for each client and project.
our values.
We are known for our:
- High quality
- Commitment to learning
- Genuine, thoughtful, and creative approach
- Collaboration, client relationships, and communication
- Ability to comprehend, frame and communicate complexity and nuance.
We are committed to diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI), and localization and exhibit this through our choice of and relationships with our clients, partners, and consultants.
client stories.
“Jenny Spencer has that rare gift where she is able to take her empathy and passion for bettering humanity and master the technical skills necessary to take action and solve it. She is a top tier, data visualization creative and... one of the most talented data storytellers I’ve had the pleasure of working with.”
“We had never done an interactive report and didn’t even know what it was…. After this experience, interactive reports will be a key part of our communications strategy.”
“By shining a spotlight on the existing capabilities, resilience, and innovation of locals rather than the inputs we wanted to provide, this study has transformed how we approach support for displacement-affected entrepreneurs.”
“The most amazing part of our engagement was the storytelling, how it brought everything together to articulate our program’s story, helping people understand it much better than they could have before.”
“It's been really fun working on this with you.”
contact us.
We can't wait to collaborate with you on your data > learning > storytelling > programming journey. Reach out to start a conversation around how we can help you...
untether your impact.
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