Impact report: showing what changed, not just what you did

An impact report is the document a charity, social enterprise or funded programme publishes to show what changed as a result of its work. The common failure is easy to spot and hard to avoid: the report lists activity — sessions run, meals served, people reached — and stops there, leaving the reader to guess whether any of it mattered. An impact report earns attention when it connects what you did to what changed for someone.

What belongs in an impact report

• The problem you exist to address, stated in a sentence with evidence.
• What you did: the activity numbers, kept brief and honest.
• What changed: outcomes for the people involved, with the measure and the comparison point.
• How you know: the method, the sample and the limitations.
• A small number of stories that illustrate the data rather than replace it.
• What did not work, and what you changed as a result.
• Finances: income, expenditure and cost per outcome where it can be calculated honestly.

Outputs, outcomes and impact

Three words get used interchangeably and mean different things. Outputs are what you produced — 240 workshops delivered. Outcomes are the change in the people who took part — 68% reported improved confidence three months later. Impact is the longer-term, wider consequence, and it is the hardest to claim honestly because other things affect it too. Reports that promise impact and show outputs are the reason funders have become sceptical of the genre.

Say what you cannot prove. A report that acknowledges a small sample or a missing control group reads as more credible than one asserting causation from a satisfaction survey, and funders who read many reports notice the difference immediately.

Producing it without a research team

1. Decide the two or three outcomes you will measure before the year starts, not after.
2. Collect the same measure at the start and end for each participant, even if the sample is small.
3. Keep the data in one place as it arrives rather than reconstructing it in the final month.
4. Draft around what changed, then add activity numbers as context.
5. Have someone outside the programme read it and mark every claim they doubt.
6. Publish it where supporters actually are, and reuse the same figures in funding applications.

Ettex Show works for the published version: a presentation-style report with charts, quotes and sections, shareable as a link rather than a 4 MB attachment, and easy to update when the next year's figures arrive. Where the underlying numbers come from volunteer hours, case records or donations, keeping them structured during the year is what makes the report a two-week job rather than a two-month one.