Open Briefing builds protection and care with people and movements leading change under pressure.

Measuring impact in this work is not simple. The most important outcomes are often invisible: an organisation that does not collapse, a defender who does not have to withdraw, a movement that can continue, a team that can act with greater agency and confidence.

That is why our monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning (MEAL) framework combines numbers, stories, feedback, and independent scrutiny.

How we understand impact

We understand and report on our impact in three connected ways:

1. Ongoing monitoring and feedback. Throughout our work, we ask defenders and organisations to reflect on how much risk they face, how much capacity they have to manage that risk, and how resilient they feel. These self-reported measures – alongside regular qualitative feedback – help us track whether our support is making a practical difference in the moments when it matters most.
2. Annual impact reporting. Each year, we set out who we supported, where we worked, what we delivered, and what changed as a result, helping us reflect openly on our progress, learning, and accountability.
3. Three-yearly external evaluation. Every three years, we commission an independent evaluation to help us understand the deeper and longer-term effects of our work, what is working, and where we need to improve.

Taken together, this gives us a grounded picture of impact: what changed, why it changed, and what we need to learn.

Our impact in 2025

Demand for our security and wellbeing support has grown six-fold over five years, making 2025 our most challenging year yet.

Open Briefing received 774 calls for assistance from grassroots activists, community groups, and social movements at risk. Many were complex and high-risk, involving intersecting physical, digital, and psychological harms, and highly capable adversaries acting with impunity.

We delivered nearly 7,000 hours of mentoring and capacity-sharing, and trained 1,400 at-risk activists through 155 holistic security workshops.

Over the year, we supported organisations and activists in at least 68 countries. More than three-quarters of our cases came from the global majority, with demand concentrated across West, Central, and East Africa; Latin America; and West Asia. At the same time, a significant share came from North America and Europe, reflecting the growing pressure on civic space across regions and contexts.

Our baseline and follow-up surveys showed clear, measurable shifts. Defenders and organisations reported:

• a 10% reduction in perceived risk;
• a 38% increase in capacity to manage that risk; and
• a 90% median approval rating.

These figures matter because they point to something deeper: people and organisations felt better able to navigate the threats they faced, make decisions under pressure, and continue their work with greater agency and confidence.

Read the full impact report

What our external evaluation found

As we neared the end of our 2023–26 strategy, we commissioned an independent external impact evaluation. The evaluation involved three months of research and conversations with defenders, partners, funders, and our team.

It found a consistent picture of work that is making a meaningful and durable difference.

Continuity under threat. Open Briefing helps people and organisations continue where fear, threat, or burnout might otherwise have forced them to pause, withdraw, or collapse.

Agency and confidence. Our impact is not the elimination of risk. It is the ability to think clearly, make decisions, and act deliberately in high-risk situations.

A genuinely holistic model. Our integrated approach combines physical security, digital resilience, and wellbeing, rather than treating them as separate services. Delivered through a relational and co-designed model, it adapts to the lived realities of the people and movements we support.

Durable and scalable impact. Security, risk, and wellbeing practices become embedded in organisations and continue over time. They also spread through movements, networks, and communities, creating ripple effects beyond the immediate engagement.

A stabilising role in the wider protection ecosystem. Open Briefing is often a first call when situations are complex or urgent, helping to stabilise acute situations, support longer-term resilience, and connect defenders, organisations, funders, and partners.

As the evaluation concluded, the dominant long-term impact of our work is not the elimination of risk, but the restoration of agency, continuity, and confidence in contexts where fear, threat, and burnout could otherwise have stopped people’s work entirely.

Read the external evaluation and our response

What we are learning

The evaluation also challenged us to look honestly at what can limit our impact.

The funding ecosystem can constrain impact. Defenders’ ability to act on protection advice over the long term is often limited by insufficient and restricted funding that does not cover the practical measures needed for safety and resilience.

Pressure on our systems and people. Surging demand, rapid growth, and rising expectations create real risks for sustainability and quality if they are not addressed and resourced properly.

We are responding by strengthening our rapid response mechanism, improving triage, deepening our holistic and relational model, investing in local and regional protection capacity, improving coordination across our programmes, and strengthening the systems that allow us to sustain quality as we scale.

This learning shaped our 2026–29 strategy. Our focus is to preserve what makes our work trusted – relational, holistic, rigorous, and grounded – while building the systems, partnerships, and infrastructure needed to renew and extend protection at a time of escalating risk.

Why this matters

Safety and resilience are not optional add-ons to social change. They are part of the infrastructure that makes change possible.

There is no change without changemakers. No truth without truth-tellers. And no rights without rights defenders.

Open Briefing exists so they can continue.