Tool 4: Re-imagining reporting

UNDER CONSTRUCTION - to be published in mid 2009

The final piece of the IPAL puzzle is a theoretically and practically sound approach to reporting that focuses on the organization's contribution to outcomes and honestly reflects its learning through the voices of its constituents. This kind of reporting is an integral part of the organization's learning process, and is based on the Feedback Principle for Social Reporting:

Credible public reporting by any organization intending social outcomes includes not only the logic and evidence for the outcomes, but also (1) what the organization's primary constituents say about what it says it has achieved, and (2) how the organization proposes to respond to constituency feedback.

The Feedback Principle highlights that reporting back to primary constituents and other stakeholders against your theory of change and your strategic goals is an essential step prior to producing meaningful public reports.

In the IPAL system, formal reports should focus on your contribution to outcomes as reflected by the evidence you have gathered and the feedback you have received. Reports should be engaging public documents – in other words written in a lively accessible style for all constituents and stakeholders, and not simply to account to funders. Reports should stimulate inclusive dialogue on the conclusions and the way forward.

This kind of constituency validated impact reporting demonstrates legitimacy and impact in a credible and authentic way. It also creates a powerful structural incentive for organizations to listen to their primary constituents, as now their opinions will be visible to everyone reading the organizations' public reports. This will drive up quality of public reporting.

We recognise that many current funder-grantee relationships discourage this kind of openness and honesty. So Keystone also works with grantmakers encouraging them to see themselves as co-constituents of the change process and learning partners whose policies and practices can greatly influence the impact of their grantees.

But reporting also includes all the ways in which you communicate your work through publications, web site, press articles, presentations and meetings etc. In public communication as in formal reporting, we feel that the same focus on impact and learning and public validation through constituency voice should apply.