Don’t let your impact gather dust: How to share what you’ve achieved with confidence

So, your charity has done the hard work. You’ve gathered meaningful data, analysed what’s changed, and now you’re sitting on great evidence of your impact. Brilliant.

But here’s the thing – if that evidence only lives in a funder report or your annual review, you’re missing a golden opportunity.

How you communicate your impact is just as important as how you measure it.

The right story, told in the right way, can open doors, energise your supporters, influence policy, and help secure future funding. The wrong approach – or worse, no approach at all – can leave all that hard-earned insight gathering dust.

Here’s how to share your findings with clarity, confidence and just a little Insley magic.

Step one: Who needs to hear this?

Before you fire up Canva or open Word, stop and ask yourself: Who are you trying to reach, and what do they care about?

Different audiences want different things:

• Funders want to see how their support made a difference. They value outcomes, transparency, and learning.
• Policy-makers want credible findings and actionable recommendations aligned with current priorities.
• Supporters and the public are moved by real stories of human change, not tables and targets.
• Internal teams want to know whether things are working and how to focus resources.

Being audience-led is everything. One beautifully crafted infographic won’t land with everyone (although it does for me – I love a good visual!), and that’s OK.

Step two: Choose your format (wisely)

Be honest: what are your people actually going to read or watch?

• Funders: Unless they’ve asked for a full evaluation report, go for a crisp two-page impact summary or a short, jargon-free update. Add visuals.
• Policy-makers: They’re busy. Try a one-page brief or a short learning session.
• Supporters: Stories, photos, short videos or social media graphics usually work best.
• Your board: A one-pager or dashboard showing progress against strategy is often just the ticket.

Massive incoming caveat: people aren’t all the same. One person’s “perfect format” is another’s information overload. Within each audience group, people have different preferences, so get to know them and their preferences wherever possible.

At the recent Festival of Impact and Evaluation (hosted by the excellent CHEW network), Lucie Moore, Acting Head of the Evaluation Task Force at the Cabinet Office, said if she can’t see the question and answer on the first page of an evaluation report, she’s unlikely to read on. Harsh, but fair!

So before you create anything, ask yourself:

1. Who is it for?

2. What do they need to know?

3. How much time do they have?

4. What format will they actually engage with?

Here’s another example of why format matters. 15 years ago, I created an infographic for an evaluation of Nightstop, one of my first consultancy projects. To this day, I still meet people in training sessions who tell me they recently worked for Depaul UK or Nightstop, and they are still sharing the infographic with their audiences. It was even featured on the BetterEvaluation website as a best-practice example of an evaluation infographic. Some formats have real staying power.

Step three: Bring your data to life

Yes, numbers matter, but people remember stories.

A funder might be impressed that 92% of participants reported improved wellbeing. But they’ll be moved when they read how Jamal left the house for the first time in five years.

Here’s the sweet spot:

No numbers without stories. No stories without numbers.

In a strong impact report:

• Your stats show scale and credibility
• Your stories bring meaning and connection

Use quotes, case studies, and visuals to humanise your findings – but always provide the context: why it matters, what’s changed, and what you learnt.

Step four: Keep it clear and don’t overclaim

A few golden rules:

• Be bold. Celebrate what worked. You’ve earned it.
• Avoid jargon. If you wouldn’t say it out loud, don’t write it down.
• Don’t overclaim. Other organisations or wider factors might have contributed to the outcomes; that shouldn’t stop you from sharing your impact, just add a short section on contributing factors (like partnership working or support from elsewhere).
• Be transparent. If something didn’t go to plan, say so and explain what you learned.

As the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation puts it:

“We want to know when things don’t work out; why they don’t go well; and how you learn from it and use that knowledge to move forward.”

That’s not a trap. It’s an invitation.

Step five: make it easy to use, share and talk about

Please don’t let your report get lost in a dusty PDF buried deep on your website. The best impact communications are:

• Visual – infographics, charts, and photos do a lot of heavy lifting
• Modular – they break up your report so you can reuse key messages in presentations, funding bids, and newsletters
• Shareable – think email, website, socials, printed updates… wherever your audience actually is

And don’t just report impact, tell your impact story!

Bring it into conversations. Share it at events. Use it in your elevator pitch.

Include a live dashboard on your website. Drop a quote into your next board report.

What’s your next move?

Here’s my challenge to you: pick one audience and one way to share your impact in the next four weeks.

This could be:

• A funder email update
• A short impact story on your website
• A staff briefing or learning lunch
• A social post with a punchy graphic

Keep it small. Keep it doable. But most of all, do it.

At Insley Consulting, we like to say:

Done is better than perfect.

Because when you share your impact with clarity, creativity and confidence, you don’t just report the difference you’ve made. You amplify it.