Reporting back to funders - why bother?
Organisations funded by Youth Music spend a lot of time collecting information about the effectiveness of their music projects. In some cases, a real struggle comes from making sense of all this information. But what's the value of reporting and what does Youth Music actually do with the reports it receives from grant holders? Research and Evaluation Specialist, Dr Dougie Lonie, explains...
Why report?
Having spoken to many project managers and music practitioners over the past few years, the one thing I hear again and again is that people don't generally love writing reports.
Right now the Grants & Learning Team at Youth Music are busy reading the most recent reports sent in by grant holders and trying to make sense of a huge amount of data. I thought it was timely to let people know what we actually do with the reports and other information grant holders send in.
First up, most reports are tied to grant-holders receiving funds, whether at an interim or final stage of the project. If there have been some problems in a project, or things have been heading in a slightly different direction, the reporting provides an opportunity for a conversation to take place between Youth Music and its grantees. Reports in this way are as much about challenges and difficulties as they are about celebrating positive achievements and change. But it's great for Youth Music to know about both so we can help support and celebrate.
Secondly, the reports provide an account of what has been achieved in a project, and ultimately by the money Youth Music is distributing. Youth Music has been working over the past few years to really embed an outcomes approach across its funding programme. Having played an integral role in this process since 2009 I have seen how the standard of reporting by grantees has improved hugely. Hopefully, those we have worked with through outcomes training, developing resources, and reviewing the questions we ask, have also found that things are heading in the right direction and it's becoming more straightforward to account for impact within projects and to report. We still have some way to go, but I hope people can identify the changes we have made to reporting to make it easier and more relevant to people's actual work.
I know many people don't like collecting the statistical information and often find it heavy handed. However, it is important for Youth Music to be collecting agreed key performance indicators for its funders. Also, it's important to get a sense of scale on access and reach across the regions. What we've always said is that people are more important than data, so its also true that collecting statistical information isn't always easy or appropriate. Reporting isn't a part of some faceless bureaucracy - we're always open to a conversation and to develop processes if we can.
What do you do with my reports?
At this time of the year, when we are researching the impact of Youth Music funding, we put all the reports for projects that have finished in 2011/2012 into qualitative data analysis software called Nvivo. We also collect all the statistics in Excel and begin to look at the reach and access data. Once all the reports are in the software, we 'code' all the different things a report could feature (e.g. Schools, Social Services, Accreditation, or Partnerships). Once all the information (usually around 1,000,000 words of it!) has been coded, we do a deeper 'thematic coding' where we look for themes emerging, and can get a sense of where real impact has been achieved.
An example might be where one young person in a project has changed their attitude to school, based on the opportunity they have had to express themself. On its own this may seem like weak or anecdotal evidence of impact, but if it is reported by another 20, or 50 projects, it's actually a very strong finding.
This is how we can be confident where impact has been strongly achieved, but it also allows us to identify innovation or new ideas that could be fed back into the programme or shared more widely, or form the basis for pilot work or the development of a new module. Eventually this work forms the basis of Youth Music's reporting to Arts Council England and other funders. We also aim to create outputs that our grant holders and other stakeholders will find useful in their work (you can access previous impact reports and some of the documents we have created here).
Fundamentally though, it is through the analysis of your reports that Youth Music gets its information on what is being achieved across the country, what challenges people face and how they overcome them. Far from being a bureaucratic exercise to manage the last payment of a grant, reporting is the main opportunity you have to shape the Youth Music Programme, to influence others in the sector, to demonstrate the impact of music making for young people, and ultimately secure future funding for Youth Music as an organisation. The better quality of reports we receive the easier it is to convince people of the value of our work - individually and collectively.
Good reporting was integral in Youth Music securing investment for the non-formal sector from Arts Council England until 2015. Good reporting allowed us to publish a series of evidence reviews last year that also led us to develop the elevated risk module and support more children and young people who need it. Good reporting ultimately helps us identify need and shape the offer to children and young people. So the value is clear, real, and very much appreciated.
So next time you find yourself stuck, bored, sitting at the computer at 8pm on a Friday night finishing that final report, think about the massive research and impact exercise you are part of and how it is helping to shape the youth music sector. Also have a think and let us know if there are any particular outputs you would find useful and we'll do our best to get the information back out in a way that is relevant to you.
Lastly, thank you very much for the time you commit to reporting - there are faces behind the submit button (often smiling at what we read!)