You need to know you are writing for. What do you want to achieve through your impact assessment and your impact story? What change must happen, and for whom?

This page takes you through two key preparatory steps that you need to complete, either in a light touch way or through a workshop with your colleagues,

Set out what you want to achieve

Download or make a copy of the blank template 🔽

Map the audience for your impact narrative and get to know their needs

It is important to know the audience you are aiming to reach with the report. You’ll probably see that this is different from the main stakeholders in your impact assessment. Now you need to map their needs. This will help shape how you share your impact story with them:

• What do your audiences want or need? 

• What will they gain from reading your report?

• How can your story address their needs?

• Who is expecting to see the results? How will you get the results to them? 

• What ‘pain points’ does your audience have that your impact report can address or clarify?

Go back to your notes from the early days of Phase one when you were drafting a list of stakeholders for your project. In Phase one, you created empathy maps for your stakeholders to find out what they experience as pains and how your work can help to relieve them). Who were the stakeholder(s) you reached or wanted to reach? What do they think and feel and how will that influence how you share the findings of your impact assessment?

You’ll go into more detail about the ‘how’ you’ll share the impact assessment with them later. But it’s important to know from the beginning who you’re writing your narrative and report for, as well as what you want to achieve.

Download or make a copy of the blank template 🔽

Next steps: take a look at the workshop outline! 🔽