Tell the year’s story without overstating the result

What we found in the news

A 2018 Charity Commission review of public benefit reporting (opens in a new tab) examined how charities explained their work in annual reports. It described useful reporting as:

more than including a standard statement

The review concerned charities in England and Wales and their reports for a particular period. We are not treating it as a current compliance checklist. Its enduring question is useful for any year-end discussion: have we explained what the organization did and what we actually know about the difference it made?

Why this matters to us

An annual review can fill quickly with activity: sessions delivered, people attending, new resources published and partnerships announced. Those are legitimate achievements. They may represent considerable work.

But an activity count does not, by itself, tell us what someone experienced or whether a hoped-for change occurred. A warm photograph cannot answer that question either.

At genus, we want the organization's story to remain useful to the people reading it and the team planning what comes next. That means allowing achievement, disappointment and uncertainty to sit in the same account. The year does not need to have gone perfectly to be worth understanding.

Separate what happened from what changed

Imagine a hypothetical community program reviewing a year of shared activities. It can verify that sessions took place and describe attendance from its records. It also received comments from some participants about feeling more comfortable joining a group.

Those are different kinds of evidence. The team can report the activity it delivered and, with appropriate permission and care, describe the feedback it received. It should not assume that every participant had the same experience or that the program alone caused a wider change in wellbeing.

Check the wording of each claim. Does it describe a recorded event, a person's account, a measured change or an interpretation? The reader should be able to tell.

When information is incomplete, explain the limitation plainly. That can make the account more credible and give the next year's work a clearer question.

Include what the team learned from difficulty

The program might have tried an evening session that attracted little interest. Reporting that experience need not mean dismissing the effort or the people who attended.

Explain what the organization tried, what it noticed and what it has decided to explore next. Perhaps the timing was unsuitable. Perhaps the invitation did not reach the intended audience. Perhaps the idea needs a different format. If the team does not know, say so.

Invite staff and participants to review the interpretation. People may recognize a different explanation from the one that first seemed obvious in the office.

Avoid turning every difficulty into a success story. Sometimes a service needs to stop an activity, acknowledge an unmet need or seek help beyond its current capacity. An honest review gives those decisions a place.

Connect the account to a decision for next year

Choose a few findings that should influence the next plan. The hypothetical team may want to preserve a well-used session, improve the first-visit experience or understand who is missing from the program.

Identify what evidence supports each choice and what further information is needed. Assign someone to take the question forward. A review becomes more valuable when it changes the work that follows.

Check public wording against the underlying record before sharing it. Keep private information private, seek the appropriate permission for real stories and avoid combining separate experiences into a quotation attributed to one person.

A clear annual account does not need a dramatic claim in every paragraph. Specific work, carefully described, can speak for itself.

What this means for the people you serve

People should be able to recognize the service in the story it tells. They may value something the organization did not initially think to count. Offer an appropriate opportunity to contribute and explain how their input will be used. Their experience belongs to them, including the choice not to make it part of a public report.

The genus connection

Current genus staff workspaces can bring recorded activities, participation and reviewed information into view where the relevant modules are configured. Staff-reviewed summaries can help organize records; they cannot supply events that were never recorded or turn activity into proof of an outcome.

The partner portal and insights (opens in a new tab) can support part of the review process. The organization remains responsible for checking its evidence, respecting people's choices and deciding what it can fairly claim.

One question for your next team meeting

What can we say confidently about this year, and what do we still need to understand?