Sharing your impact through reporting

Think of your impact as the overall change your volunteer program aims to contribute to – the biggest, broadest long-term changes resulting from volunteer activities.

These may take years to emerge, can be positive or negative, direct or indirect, and may be planned or unexpected.

Thinking about impact helps you see your program as part of a bigger system tackling big social, economic, or environmental challenges. It clarifies your ultimate goal, allowing you to work backward and check whether your volunteer activities are creating the changes you want.

• Summary – a short overview of the main findings and key messages.
• Program overview – background and purpose of the program or initiative.
• Impact statement – a concise statement describing the difference your program made.
• Program logic – visual or written summary linking activities to outcomes.
• Methodology – how you collected and analysed your data.
• Findings – key results supported by charts, infographics, and narrative analysis.
• Conclusions – main takeaways and insights from your evaluation.
• Next steps or recommendations – actions or improvements informed by the findings.

Impact reports are particularly valuable when you need to present comprehensive findings to:

• Board and executive leaders
• Funders and partners
• Program managers or leads
• Participants and stakeholders involved in the evaluation.

Not every evaluation requires a full report – but should reflect purpose, audience and level of detail needed.

• Why did you undertake this work?
• Why are you sharing your findings?
• What change or action do you hope to influence?

Answering these questions will help you shape how you present your findings for different audiences and ensure your reporting achieves the right impact. Reporting your findings is also an important part of “closing the loop”, which we explore in through our Measuring Change work.