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.

What should be in a narrative?

There are as many different ways to tell a story as there are stories to be told. Here we set out two key aspects to creating your narrative: what should be in it and how you can structure this in an effective way.

“Change is what story is”

Erin Morgenstern, The Starless Sea

Gather your bricks and mortar, the interpretation of words and numbers

Not all of  your data will be numbers and in some cases, you might not have any words. Whether you have conducted purely qualitative or quantitative research or taken a mixed approach, you can still build a strong narrative. The bricks and mortar of your impact narrative are likely to come from your interpretation. 

Keep your data and interpretations from your data analysis phase close to hand. Read everything again. Does your interpretation fall into a natural narrative? Review it against the checklist below.

Checklist: the building blocks of your narrative

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Your narrative can come in different scales or formats, like a museum has its own story and individual stories for different exhibitions. You may want to create an overarching narrative for the entire report or just a powerful story about findings and impact claims in the main body or conclusions. Find the approach that works best for you!