Communicating Outcomes

"We give a hot meal to 150 people every day."
"Last year, we provided 4,983 hours of life skills training."
"More than 1,000 people attended our seven art shows last year."
"We provide free immunizations for 300 children in Ghana every month."

If your outcome statements read something like these, funders are likely to think..."So what?"

Why? Because these aren't outcomes. They are just activities. Most of my clients have used "outcome statements" like these for years and then wondered why funders don't agree with how important their work is.

Truth is: their work is important - vital, in fact. But they are working so hard every day that they begin to believe these activities are actually why they exist. It's time to dig deeper.


Quite simply, outcome statements aren't a description of your activities - they are what happens as the RESULT of your activities. Undoubtedly, that can be much harder to measure but having data that shows how you make the world a better place is too important to blow off.

How do you find your most powerful outcome measures? It depends on a multitude of factors such as your goals, your audience, your activities. But here is a thought process that may help -- let's use the fourth statement above as a starting point.  Disclaimer: I am making up statistics just for demonstration purposes. Please don't use them!

"We provide free immunizations for 300 children in Ghana every month."
WHY?
"So they won't contract preventable diseases like tuberculosis, which killed 1.5 million people worldwide last year."
WHY DO YOU NEED TO DO THIS INSTEAD OF SOMEONE ELSE?
"The children we immunize live in remote areas without viable access to healthcare. If we did not take the vaccines to them, they would not receive them."
HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT?
"The parents who bring their children to the clinic tell us this, as does a formal research project conducted by the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) in 2011."
IF YOU DIDN'T DO THIS, WHAT WOULD HAPPEN?
"The area in which we work has a child population of about 40,000. An estimated 10% (4,000) of children not immunized would contract a preventable disease. Research shows that half of them (2,000) would die." 
HOW DOES THIS IMPACT PEOPLE?
"When children are ill, they are unable to help the family gather water and food, care for animals, etc. Taking an ill child to a clinic can take up to three days - during which time the family is unable to earn a living. This impacts the entire family, increasing chances of starvation and the likelihood of developing additional health problems. According to research by the W.H.O., families with healthy children have twice as much access to clean water and nutritious food and, on average, have 35% more resources (water, food, income).

WOW! That's a lot more impact than just giving 300 shots a month!

So...how should you write these outcome statements? I like to use a logic model to achieve those. I will blog about this process next time - so stay tuned!