How to Get Started with Your Impact Report

Complete in about 1-2 hours. Most nonprofits complete the builder in one focused session after drafting responses in advance.

Before you begin

Taking a few minutes to prepare will make the building process much smoother. Here's what we recommend:

Have ready

Decide on which program(s) you plan to report on. Our report builder is meant to reflect one distinct program per report.
A program lead or manager who knows the program well
Recent reports, grant agreements, or website content you can pull from

Draft offline first (recommended)

The builder is sequential, so we strongly recommend downloading our question set and drafting your responses in a Google Doc before entering the builder. This way you won't have to stop mid-session to track down information.

Download the question set (please make a copy of the viewable document in order to make edits)

Step 1: Decide which program to report on

Before opening the builder, decide which program you'll report on.

Report at the program level, not the grant or organizational level. Capture the full picture of your program, including outcomes, budget, and beneficiaries, regardless of how it's funded. This makes your report more useful across a range of audiences and future requests.

A good rule of thumb: start with the program you know best and have the most data on. You can always add reports for other programs later.

Step 2: Gather your materials

Most of what you need to complete your report already exists. Pull from what you have rather than starting from scratch. Useful sources include:

Your organization or program website
Annual reports or program summaries
Grant applications or agreements
Evaluation reports or outcome data
Logic models or theory of change documents

You'll use these most in the overview, intervention, and beneficiary sections. The outcomes section is where your specific data and measurement approach will matter most, so save your energy for that.

Step 3: Draft your responses offline

Once you have your materials together, work through the question set before entering the builder. As you draft, keep these tips in mind:

Focus on your end beneficiaries' outcomes. True Impact reports focus on the outcomes of the people you serve, not just the activities your organization runs. Keep asking: who ultimately benefits from this work, and how does their life improve? For example, if you train teachers to better serve students, the students are the end beneficiaries whose outcomes you should capture.

Make the success indicators your own. The platform offers standard descriptions for each outcome indicator, but we encourage you to tailor them to your program. Use the success criteria section to describe what success looks like in your specific context.

Use your best available data. You don't need perfect data to complete a report. Your best available information is the right starting point. When selecting outcomes, you'll have the opportunity to share how each was measured. If you find yourself estimating often, that's a useful signal about where you might want to invest in data collection over time.

Step 4: Enter the builder and complete your report

Once your responses are drafted, open the builder in your partner platform and work through each section in order:

Program overview - Name, description, location, and program type
Intervention - What your program does and how it works
Outcomes - The changes your program creates, how you measure them, and your supporting data
Beneficiaries - Who you serve and how many
Budget - Total program costs for the reporting period

You can save your progress and return at any time.

Step 5: Submit your report

Once you've completed all sections, submit your report. Reports created through a partner platform are automatically made public and shared across the Impact Reporting Network when submitted.