Your consultation is complete, you’ve compiled your data, and you’re ready to share the results and next steps. This is often called “closing the loop” and is a crucial step in your engagement process.
Reporting back helps your community understand what you’ve done with their contributions and how their input has informed any decisions, next steps, or processes. It will help them build trust with you if they can see that you’re actively listening to community feedback.
Reporting can encompass several formats and methods, ranging from custom and extensive reports for long-term projects to summarizing updates on your project descriptions. This article will provide some ideas for what to include in your report and some methods for ensuring people see it.
What to Include in Your Report
Your reports should reflect the purpose and objectives of the consultations. The aim of the report is to share the results and next steps with participants, community members, and other stakeholders. You can report on the engagement strategy and methodology, as well as the results, and you may need different reports for the community and for internal stakeholders.
Here are some ideas on what to include:
Where you started: Briefly summarize what you knew before the consultation and what led to the engagement.
Purpose and Objectives: Explain the “why” and “what” of your consultation. State what you were aiming to do and why community input was essential.
Methodology: An overview of your engagement process; explain when, where, and how you asked for feedback.
Audience and Contributors: State which community groups participated and from whom you heard feedback. If the consultation required participation from a specific demographic group, explain which group and if they contributed to the outcome.
Feedback and key takeaways: These are your consultation results; state any key concerns, themes, ideas, or decisions. The feedback should remain unbiased, so include both negative and positive feedback and any anonymized quotes, if appropriate.
Outcomes: Explain the decision-making process and provide your community with any outcomes or next steps.
With all this information, your report may become very long. To ensure people see and understand the key information, you can get creative with your outcomes. For example, you may want to include infographics for snapshot statistics or demographic outcomes. Another method is to create a video explaining the key takeaways, but remember to factor this into your engagement plan and budget.
How to Circulate Your Report
Once your report is complete, you must ensure that everyone who needs to see the report can do so.
Here are some ideas for publication channels to circulate your report:
Websites, including your corporate site, engagement site, or external sites that are relevant to the consultation
Social media channels, such as your organization’s Facebook account
Newsletters via email or paper, depending on preference
Other media, such as radio or flyers
In-person meetings and presentations
Posting updates on your EngagementHQ site homepage
Newsfeed article updates
The project description and widgets
Specific local advertisements for place-based consultations, such as a QR code on a transport route you’ve consulted on
We recommend publishing or advertising your consultation outcomes on multiple channels, because you don’t want to accidentally overlook a community group that won’t look on your engagement website for the update.