Why take time to write activity reports?

Welcome to this blog post! I’d like to discuss the importance of public engagement activity reporting. Feel free to leave a comment below with your thoughts on the topic!

I find that activity reporting is very important, but often is the first task to get pushed aside in time crunches. That’s why I’d like to talk more about why reporting is so important and why we should take care to do it well. As with any report, it’s important to keep in mind why it’s being written, and who will benefit from it. So let’s try to answer these questions!

Here are a few answers I came up with:

Gather all the information about the delivered workshop in a single place

I like to make sure to include as many details as possible about the activity in its report. For example, I include the activity aims, objects, unfolding, and reflection. I find this helps me remember what really the activity was about when looking back at the report (for example when writing a grant proposal).

As the name suggests, the document aims to report on the activity. That’s why I also include evaluation method, data, and analysis (charts, tables, …). Again, this can come in handy at a later time to showcase the impact of the activity. I feel reporting and evaluation go hand-in-hand, but let’s keep that topic for another blog-post!

I’ve attached a template here for everyone to use, feel free to download it and adapt it to your needs. What would you change in the document?

Activity Report Template

Hear out every level of people involved in the activity

As I briefly mentioned above, the report can be a place to reflect on the activity and how it went. I find it important that everyone linked to the activity gets a place to voice their opinion. That’s why I like to ask everyone from demonstrators, to event organizers, via funders and participants for their feedback. For example, I included a SWOT analysis section in the template above to gather everyone’s opinion. How do you make sure everyone is heard and feels valued?

Learn from the activity and improve future ones

After reflecting on the activity, I try to find ways to improve the activity. For example by answering: what parts should be discarded or improved? I aim to give ideas in the “Recommendation” section of the above template. These can be quite practical (give an extra 10 minutes here) or more broad (make sure to include oral explanations as well for this step). What do you pay attention to when reflecting on an activity?

Showcase the impact of the activity

This is more connected to “who” will read the report. Most often, funding agencies, higher-ups will want to make sure that their investments (time, financial, …) are worth it and require yearly reports for example. Activity reports can be a great way to showcase the success of the activity! Careful here because success can be measured in many ways. That’s why clearly defined objectives are important. For example, is a successful activity one that gets a good participants rating? Or one that trains many new demonstrators? What criteria do you use to measure an activity’s success?

Help when writing funding applications

To continue running workshops and activities, funding will eventually become a necessity. I find that having activity report ready can be of great help and inspiration when writing funding applications. For example, reports can help to show that the team is capable of delivering a successful activity and should continue to do so! Again, having everything in one place also makes the task easier. For example data might be ready available in the reports. How do you use activity reports when writing funding applications?

Promote future activities

I find that these activity reports can be very useful when advertising future activities. For example, I can use the data in the reports to showcase the success of previous activities which can suggest that this one will be great as well! Do you look through activity reports when advertising your next one?

Overall, there are many reasons why we should take the time to write activity reports even during busy times. Why do you take the time to write activity reports? Let us know in the comments below!