The essential purposes of project evaluations are to use the information to improve projects while they are running, to draw out the value of what has been learnt and to provide advice for funders and future projects. The rationale you identified early in the evaluation process and the interests of key stakeholders should help to guide the use of the evaluation findings. The results of the evaluation can be used to demonstrate the effectiveness of your project, identify ways to improve future projects, modify project planning, demonstrate accountability, and justify funding.
When writing reports you need to think about:
Your data deserves to be presented in a clear and understandable form. To interpret your findings and make your recommendations, you must ensure that your results are easy to understand and well presented. Ensure that a consistent approach is used to document styles, formats and numbering. Make sure that the text is spell checked and ask someone else to both proof read and clarity check the document.
Use illustrations where appropriate to help readers with different cognitive styles understand your project and the evaluation findings. Consider presenting key messages in different media, perhaps as a set of slides with an audio description. Where data is presented in tables or charts ensure that it is properly labelled and base values are included. If you plan to make your report available on the web check that it is in a format appropriate to being read on screen.
In Step 1 the initial stakeholder analysis in the project plan was suggested as a way of eliciting the key interests of stakeholders in a particular project. Revisiting this analysis will help to structure and focus reporting the evaluation findings. One approach that can be quite successful is to arrange a meeting with key stakeholders and the project team to rehearse reporting findings to gauge reaction and to identify any areas requiring greater clarity or explanation. More importantly you should have gained the support of key stakeholders for any recommendations made and to identify ways in which they can make use of the evaluation findings.
Identifying relevant audiences and suitable messages is an essential part of effective evaluation reporting. Know who your audience is and what information they need. Different audiences will need and require different information, in different ways, even when you are reporting on the same issues.