You’ve interpreted the data. It’s now time to turn your data into a story. At this stage, it’s helpful to get the perspectives of your communications colleague(s), if this support is available. Let them know in advance that you’ll need this support - hopefully you kept them informed as you went through Phase two.
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An impact narrative can be broken down into five elements. Use the checklist below to assess if you have the right information to hand:
🌳 Setting
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This includes all of the background information that helps readers understand the situation, such as your organisational goals, research question(s) and objective(s), conceptual framework (e.g. strategic perspectives and value lenses), and methodology. These pieces of information constitute the introduction of your final report.
🧑🤝🧑 Characters
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Your narrative protagonists are your stakeholders – the narrative is for them, not the data! These include those for whom you have planned to create a change, as well as other stakeholders like funders, partners and local authorities etc. You can have a short ‘who is this report for’ section or a summary of your impact beneficiaries in the introduction. There are also supporting characters such as the survey/interview participants who share their experiences from a personal perspective. Their perspectives are the evidence you need to support your impact claims in the main body of the report.
🖋️ Plot
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This is how your narrative flows from one finding to the next. A good plot in the main body of the report links your findings, impact claims and supporting evidence in a compelling way to guide readers through your impact journey and finally answer your research question(s).
🔄 Plot twists: surprise, contrast or conflict
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Surprises are the interesting discoveries, problems or puzzles derived from the data. Like conflicts in a novel, these are important elements to hook your readers and keep them engaged before presenting your findings in detail.
🪞 Reflection
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This is the end of your narrative, which forms the conclusion. Remember your audience and what they stand to gain from reading your report. Now, you look back at the entire impact journey, summarise it and identify implications of positive findings as well as resolutions for problems.
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Tip: Have you kept note of any insightful phrases or quotes that you can use in your report and that will help you highlight a specific finding or theme? |
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