Measuring and Communicating

Your Impact Conference

29 June 2011

CharityComms is the professional membership body for charity communicators. We believe charity communications

are integral to each charity’s work for a better world.

W: www.charitycomms.org.uk T: 020 7426 8877

Tel: 020 7426 8888

michele.madden@nfpsynergy.net

gideon@ngomedia.org.uk

Use your data to inspire, motivate and engage

June 2011

3

Purpose of session

• You’ve done your research. So how do you present it in a way that excites the press, inspires your supporters and impresses funders -and all without being sensationalist or inaccurate?

• how to use statistics accurately

• how to choose and present your data to appeal to your audiences

First things first....

• What IS your research?

• What does it mean for your organisation?

• Do you understand it?

4

Talking about statistics

5

Talking about statistics

13, 18, 13, 14, 13, 16, 14, 21, 13

• Averages; mean, median and mode

• Base

• Percentages and percent changes

• Sub-groups

• Correlations

• Confidence and significance

• Standard deviation, regression

6

What do you need to look for?

• Where did the data come from?

• How was it collected?

• How ‘robust’ is the research?

• Be careful with correlations

7

15%

25%

14%

14%

5%

65%

74%

52%

80%

10%

12%

34%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Not interested

No opportunities

Lack of skills

Lack of time

No Not sure Yes

Q.10. Please state whether or not the following issues are a barrier to you engaging in volunteering?

Base: 25 respondentsService research, 2002 RubbishResearch Ltd

Barriers to volunteering

Exercise

• Look at the chart

o What is it saying?

o What is interesting?

o What might you be concerned about?

• 3 headlines

o Dull but correct

o Middle of the road

o Outrageous

9

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

2000/01 2001/02 2002/03 2003/04 2004/05 2005/06 2006/07 2007/08

Inco

me (

£ b

illions)

Statutorysources

Individuals

Internallygenerated

PrivateSector

Source: The UK Civil Society Almanac 2010 (NCVO)1010

19%18%

16%

20%21%

19%

24%

16%

Total 16-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65-74 75+

Volunteering habits

“Have you given time as a volunteer in the last three months, to a charity or other organisation, or in your local community?” Yes

Base: 1000 adults 16+, Britain.

Source: Charity Awareness Monitor, 2009, nfpSynergy

36.939.4 38.5

45.2

56.1

43.5

Mean times

volunteered each

year, 55.5

1111

While government may not grow, individuals could provide more income for charitiesTotal increase in disposable income from 1980 in real terms

Base: UKSource: National Statistics/nVision

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

120%

140%

160%

1981

1983

1985

1987

1989

1991

1993

1995

1997

1999

2001

2003

2005

2007

2009

2011

2013

2015

12

Forecast

12

Writing it up

13

• Give your writing passion, enthusiasm and urgency

• But make it convincing and honest

Tireless campaigning by environmental campaign groups led to World Leaders agreeing a new protocol for cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2015.

Really?

Rolling out the old charity clichés

Our charity...

• Works in some of the poorest countries in the world...

• ... recently completed a project in Poorsville, one of the UK’s most deprived areas....

• ... where we’re tackling a growing trend for people to be...

• ... this is rapidly turning into one of the most urgent issues facing the UK/ministers/the world/the climate...

• ... hundreds of thousands are showing their support

14

Generalisations and clichés work against impact

..

• The UN ranks countries in terms of poverty. We work in the bottom five.

• Across the UK, three in 10 people are unemployed.In Poorsville, it’s the other way around. Only three in 10 have a job.

• 120,000 have signed our petition. Twice that have Liked our campaign on Facebook.Yes, but so what....?

15

Use your statistics to give your copy verisimilitude

• Last year we worked with more than 3,000 families across the UKo Last year we worked with 945 dads, 1,564 mums, 865 pupils.

And three pet dogs.

• You helped fund our emergency response to last year’s floodso Your donation helped pay for 3,253 hot, crispy bacon sandwiches and 6,453

desperately steaming cups of tea for those stranded by the floods last year

• Children in Tanzibon are now going to schoolo Tanzibon’s school age pupils used to spend their day struggling

to find safe water to drink for their family.Now all they struggle with is tough maths problem set by teacher.

Exercise: Try writing a line using verisimilitude, based on your statistics

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Make your statistics accessible

• Women in some parts of Tanzania spend eight hours every day collecting water.

o It takes you eight seconds to fill the kettle. It takes Miranda eight hours.

o From the moment you left home this morning untill the moment you walk through the door tonight, Miranda will be collecting water in the hot sun.

o Miranda walks the distance you drive to work everyday – with a barrel of water on her head.

• 60,000 children in north London live in poverty.

o The number of children living in poverty could fill the Emirates stadium

EXERCISE : Use comparisons that work for your issue, and your audience

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Tell a story

“The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic.”

Paint a detailed picture of one person or family affected by your issue.

There are 10,000 like Terry in need of your help.

18

Use different types of graph....

19

In total these 3204 organisations spend

£632,391,237 in individual grants.

Maps

20

Percentage

Many Eyes UK regions map and world map are good and quick.

Have to use all the regions, you just can’t use the summed regions - i.e. East Midlands and West Midlands must stay separate.

Ireland46

England67

Wales64

Scotland91 UK wide

721

Overseas53

UK region-specificnumber well over

2000

22

Spontaneous awareness

23

Mapping

GeneralistSpecialist

Income £0m

Income £500m

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Presenting data• Don’t overuse complex graphs and metrics

o Horses for courses

• Be honest and upfront about any weaknesses in the research methodology – people more likely to believe you

• Be careful with percentages and quotes, do a data check

• Think about the participants – would they want to be represented like this?

• Don’t exaggerate, take things out of context, twist the findings – comes back to bite you!

• When you’ve written it up go back to the data and check you haven’t moved too far away from the original meaning

25

26

• BBC News Styleguidehttp://www.bbctraining.com/pdfs/newsstyleguide.pdf

• Essential English for Journalists, Editors and WritersHoward Evans (Pimlico)

• Many Eyes maps http://www-958.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/manyeyes/page/Maps.html

Suggested resources

QUESTIONS AND

DISCUSSION