Community-based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) relies on effective community engagement to overcome barriers to accessing lifesaving services. An effective community outreach strategy is also essential to boosting the success of CMAM, however it is not always clear how well an organisation can implement these outreach activities. It would be very useful to monitor this aspect of a CMAM programme to keep it on track and find areas for improvement in good time. That’s exactly what can now be done with an essential, easy to use and useful tool called the Community Balanced Scorecard for Community Engagement (CBSC-CE). The tool uses a scorecard method to assess the effectiveness of a programme to engage the community in CMAM programme activities. It puts particular emphasis not just on the programme capacities themselves but also the community’s perception of the programme. There are five key steps to making the most of this new tool: