Putting the Report Together

As we have mentioned earlier, knowing the reader or recipient of your report is critical to delivering an effective message. As you begin putting your report together, consider who will be reading/listening to help you do the following:

1. Decide on the style or tone of the report based on who will read it. Consider the following:
   

   • Report style: • Presentation style: • Level of detail: • Language level:

   Technical vs. colloquial Written vs. oral Numerical vs. narrative Staff vs. statistician

    
2. Identify the most important messages you want to share – the findings that best answer the questions that were posed when you started your evaluation.
    
3. Recreate a description of the background and program history from notes taken throughout the process. Keep these sections simple and clear.
    
   

   Tip: Make sure you have taken good notes about how the evaluation progressed so that you can include that information accurately in your report.

      
4. Make useful recommendations. Write succinct, simple recommendations that clearly define what should happen and make sure that each recommendation is tied to an evaluation finding.
    
5. When your report is for general audiences, create a “Reader’s Digest” version of how you accomplished the evaluation. This is probably the least interesting part of the report, so keep it short. But, give readers the chance to learn more by reading about your methods.
    
6. Organize your appendix by the tools you used during each phase of the report. For general audiences, do not include every shred of material used – just the most important tools. Make this section reproducible for those wanting to perform a similar evaluation.
    
7. Finally, craft your executive summary from the information you have put together in your report. Abbreviate and combine parts, trying to keep it to one page.

Putting together an effective report

Here are some additional suggestions from The Community Toolbox for how to create the most effective report possible.

1. Understand your primary users and audiences. What information do they need and why do they need it? Try to understand the audience's viewpoint, and be sure to get the report to them in time for it to be useful to them.
    
2. Review the results of your evaluation with program staff before you write up your evaluation report. You may want to just distribute a memo outlining the results and then hold a staff meeting to talk about it. This gives you a chance to get your staff's input on the meaning of the findings, as well as the opportunity to talk about any ambiguous data that has come up.
    
3. Brief any important political figures before you release your report to the public. This is especially important if your evaluation findings make it clear that there will be a need for any changes in policies. Policymakers or agency officials may wish to make a public response to your findings as well. For example, if your evaluation shows that your recreation program for families with developmentally disabled children is highly effective but under-funded, area human service agencies may wish to let people know that they plan to increase funding for the project in the next budget year.
    
4. Your final report can just be a short document summarizing the evaluation findings with a technical appendix for those who are interested. Don't be afraid of sounding too elementary--anyone who wants more detailed information can check out the appendix.
    
5. If you decide to do an oral presentation, you should make up a small number of charts and tables--six to ten should be plenty--illustrating the most important findings. Make up one version--printed on poster board or done as an overhead projection-- to show during the presentation itself as well as copies that your audience can keep afterwards. You may also wish to prepare a single sheet summarizing the overall results for the audience to take home.
    
6. Your report should begin with the reasons the evaluation was done, what questions were asked, and why those were the questions chosen. Explain what your group or coalition wanted to learn from the evaluation and what methods were used to conduct the evaluation.
    
7. Depending on your audience, you may want to simply highlight the results, or you may want to go into more detail about what you found. Be sure to explain what sort of implications the results have for your group or initiative. If the evaluation findings have led you to any particular conclusions about what your group should do in the future, talk about them.

For more about effective ways to put a report together,
visit the website.

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Bibliography:
 
Source: Frechtling, J., Sharp, L., & Westat, eds. (1997). Reporting the results of mixed method evaluations. In User-friendly handbook for mixed method evaluations. Arlington, VA: National Science Foundation, Directorate for Education and Human Resource.
 
Source: Hampton, C., Francisco, V.T., & Berkowitz, B. (n.d.). Communicating information to funders for support and accountability. Retrieved September 1, 2004 from the Community Tool Box web site.