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Module E > Reporting program   

Reporting the program

Programs usually last for a specific time period. They require a Final Report at the end of the program. The report may be a formal report required by funders or a report circulated within your organization or to stakeholders. Programs that last a year or more usually require Interim Reports as well. Where needs assessment or prototyping is important, you may create preliminary or front end reports.

Reports are structured to answer three basic questions:

Wanted to do? Purpose statement giving need, target audience, activities/services or learning objectives and outcomes

We did what? Report on activities, services or learning objectives, outputs, participant characteristics

So what? Report on outcomes, assessing whether targets were met. Is it worth continuing, expanding, replicating by others?

Let’s look at the most complex report—the final report. See how a logical Planning Model, like the one you’ve been preparing, helps organize and write the final report.

Library example: Riverton Memoirs final report

The Riverton program’s final report to the grant funder gets most of its text from their Logic Model. If you want to see the complete Logic Model, click on Cases and chose the Riverton link.

Section 1: What we wanted to do
Section 2: What we did
Section 3: So what?

Final Report on the “Filling in the Dashes” Program 
Riverton Public Library 
Kentucky LSTA grant

To the Kentucky Department of Libraries and Archives

Section 1: What we wanted to do
With the aid of a $7650 Library Services and Technology Act grant from the Kentucky Department of Libraries and Archives, the River County Library offered a creative writing program focusing on autobiographical pieces. County participants attended bi-monthly meetings, guided by a facilitator, on Wednesdays from 6:30-8:30 p.m. for a year. Meetings included visits from three published Kentucky authors of biography and memoirs as well as sharing and critiquing participants’ autobiographical writing. A small book containing the best samples of each group member's writings was published at the end of the program, and group members presented selections from their work at a community meeting.  Participants improved their writing and demonstrated they felt themselves to be part of a community of writers.

Section 2: What we did

Needs met: 

The program grew out of requests by library patrons and confirmed by response to locally published articles requesting feedback from potential participants.  Library patrons wanted a writing program for adults, in Riverton, Kentucky, a town of 3800 on the Ohio River, across from Indiana. Identified needs included: an organized "group" meeting regularly to produce some genre of writing, feedback from others as to how to grow as a writer, and, most importantly, the organizational help of a facilitator.

Program Activities:

In response to advertising for the program by Library Director Gerry Bard, twenty-one adults started out in the program. Rod Blackmur, an instructor at a Louisville Community College, facilitated the group. The group completed the following activities:

20 two-hour meetings (Wed., 6:30-8:30 p.m.) were held (with only one meeting in December, January, July and August).  Eighteen of the original twenty-one participants continued with the group regularly.

Group members read from a list of five published Kentucky authors who had published memoirs or biographies.

Three Kentucky authors visited, discussing writing techniques and style.

Most meetings included critiques of autobiographical writings by group members with discussion led by the facilitator.  Some meetings included in-meeting writing. 
Each continuing participant had at least two completed pieces written, critiqued, revised and published in a small book at the end of the program.

Group members gave a reading from their works at the end of the year for the Wednesdays @ One Group that meets at the Library.

Director Gerry Bard publicized the program at county post offices, with handouts to the Rotary Club, Lions Club, and Women’s Club meetings. She worked with the Extension Agent to publicize the program with the Homemakers Groups. Registration was also publicized in church bulletins throughout the county.

The Library’s cataloger, Naomi Strang, ordered and processed the multiple copies of books included in meetings. Circulation Manager Tara Baker kept records to track and assess participation and outcomes.  Mr. Blackmur handled editing duties involved in publishing the book,Kentucky Lives,by Wasteland Press of Louisville, Kentucky. 

Director Bard arranged for visits by Kentucky authors Ed McCahan, Randy Black, and Bobbie Ann Johnson. Throughout the course of the year, visiting authors were photographed as they spoke to the group. Bard wrote two articles about the progress of the group for the local paper. In addition to the final presentation to the Wednesdays @ One Group at the library, Bard arranged for readings at a local coffee house.

After eight months, each participant chose an evaluation portfolio with two pieces, providing the original version, their description of what they tried to improve, and the revised essay.

All eighteen participants were published in the book Kentucky Lives, with from three to five pieces by each author.  All participants read either at Wednesdays @ One or at the local coffee house. 

Section 3: So what?

Indicators of Success <Outcomes>:

The goals of the program were that participants would improve their writing and demonstrate they felt they were part of a community of writers.

Improved writing: An analysis of the work of the eighteen writers was carried out by an independent expert, creative writing instructor Marcia Reed in two ways. She graded the essays for 18 participants without knowing the names of the writers or which of the pair of essays (2 originals, 2 revisions) was written first, using her overall impression. She found that 12 writers (67%) improved their score on the revision. She then read the packets, evaluating them for improvement by the writer’s intent, with 17 writers (94%) showing improvement.

Community of writers: In an exit survey, all of the writers (100%) could name three ways they felt part of a community of writers, including such examples as critiquing their peers, revising, being published (in Kentucky Lives), discussing writing techniques with published authors, and presenting their work publicly at a library book club and at a local coffee shop. In addition, a phone survey three months after the close of the group showed that 15 (83%) acted in ways (predetermined by a checklist) that showed self-identification as a writer: discussing their published work with others, attending readings of other writers’ work, signing up for another writing activity, producing more writing, reading additional memoirs.

Participants indicated the importance of talking with published Kentucky authors in their sense of belonging to a community of authors.  They discussed techniques of writing and style with published writers in the context of their own experience as memoir writers.  All the participants met with at least two of the authors, and 16 of 18 (89%) met with all visiting writers. 

Analysis:

Everyone in Riverton is proud of the work done by program participants and pleased with the results. The participants showed they knew how to produce autobiographical writing, by drafting, revising and publishing it as well as presenting it to the community. A survey of participants showed that 100% of them rated as important or very important “shaping stories of lived experience” (using a 5-point Likert scale). Reading Kentucky Lives supports this view. Participants range in age from 25 to 83, covering subjects such as experiences in the Great Depression, service in World War II, getting the family’s first television set, attending the Kentucky Derby in 1975, the first day of attending an integrated high school, and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The reception of the pieces by friends and families left no doubt of the writing’s authenticity and power to affect.  One middle-aged child of a participant said he had never known before of his father’s service in Europe during World War II.

The participants’ sense of improved writing has been confirmed overwhelmingly by an independent writing judge. Our Riverton writers feel pride and achievement; they have discovered a new avenue for communication with family and friends. The community has been enriched by the shared, crafted experience of its citizens. Writing is no longer a spectator sport in Riverton. The Library is proud to be not only the source of books, but also the cradle of a book.

We are grateful for the support of an Library Services and Technology Act grant that has made this pilot program possible. We expect to be able to sustain and continue the program with the Library Director Identifying appropriate local volunteers.

 

Front-end reports: Will it work?

Final reports are summative. They judge by the outcomes: has this program worked?

At the other extreme are front-end reports.  They deal with threshold problems. That is, they ask the questions, “Will it work?” and “Is it needed?” before you commit lots of time and money to a particular product or program element.

For example,
Does the software address issues the target audience wants? 
Which brochure is most effective in attracting participants? 
Will the software work on public machines as well as private or work machines? With modem access as well as faster digital data telephone transmission lines?

Such reports are usually short and can keep all members of the program team informed.

 

Interim reports: Is the program working?

A formative evaluation occurs in the middle of a program and allows you to ask the question: Is this working?

Use your interim report with your program team to adjust resource allocation or modify what isn’t working. Use your interim report to negotiate with partners and funders about any important changes that will increase the likelihood of success with the program.

Enough participants? Why not? What change would help?

Quality of the product? Is it good enough: software, instructional materials, themed activities in a summer library program?

Are you meeting your outcome targets? With multi-year programs, you may want to evaluate the effectiveness of the outcomes expected: Are outcomes clearly written? Are outcomes sufficient to describe what you hope will happen? Are data collection methods cost efficient?

 

Consider your stakeholders

For all reports—front end, interim or final, always consider what your most important stakeholders will want to know.

What will your stakeholders want to know?

"Organization Board" : How does this further our mission? Is our reputation enhanced? How can we get the word out?

"Funder" : Did you accomplish what you said you’d do? Did you spend the money as promised? Is this a replicable model?

"Partners" : What did we accomplish? Does it make sense to continue working together? Is this a good partner for different programs in the future?

"Target Audience" :  How do the results measure up with my experience? Can I be identified? Does the program seem successful and would I participate in another?

 

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