Within results-based monitoring (RBM), there are a few essential elements to keep in mind, which also relate to donor reporting as in the previous post. The three important elements of RBM are planning, achieving, and demonstrating results. Within donor reporting, that can translate into results, analysis, and your organisation’s contribution.

Results

Results should be presented in the same order as your results matrix or logframe, reiterating the results you’re committed to from the beginning of the project. Then reflect on where they are now, comparing to your original plans if they’re different. How have they changed since the baseline or the last report, and what factors contributed to that change?

Each report may have different areas of emphasis and detail, but the three key elements are always the same.

Audiences want to know 1) what results have been achieved for your people, 2) how these results have been achieved, and 3) what is your and your partners’ contribution.

Analysis

In the analysis stage, describe how the results were achieved – what did you do to get there, focussing on the work you and the main partners involved did. Analyse your shortfalls and difficulties, and describe your achievements. Think about ‘what’s next’? (West Wing reference) and take an analytical lens to your surroundings too.

By describing what you’re working towards, think also about how it’s affected the world around you – what’s changed in your areas? How has your community responded? Have you helped make some things better? Worse? Describe the shifts. Hopefully there’s some interesting information in a story format that you can easily share.

Your Contribution

Then when you look at the contribution you and your partners have made, also get specific about what actions contributed to those changes – positive and negative, unexpected and expected.

Summarise each activity and how it relates to others in your results framework, and show how one activity will build off another and who will be involved in helping you make that change.

Use your proposal as the foundation of your report. This allows you to link what you planned to do with what you have actually done, and to critically evaluate the difference. The donor can also easily and quickly compare this, and it makes their analysis easier too.