How many people did we support this year?
The annual report is due to go to the designer in a fortnight. The communications officer emails every project lead asking for their numbers. The counselling service counts clients. The advice line counts calls. The youth project counts attendances. The befriending service counts matches. Two projects share some of the same people, and nobody is sure whether to count them once or twice.
Replies come back as spreadsheets, emails and one scribbled note. The totals do not agree with the ones in last month's trustee papers. The chief executive picks the figure that seems most defensible, and a trustee asks at the next meeting why it differs from what the funder was told.
Why the numbers never agree
The charity has never agreed what its core measures mean, so each project answers a slightly different question.
- There are no written definitions for words like supported, reached or helped.
- Projects keep data in their own tools: a case system, a booking tool, a spreadsheet.
- The same person can be counted by several projects with no way to deduplicate.
- Different reporting periods are used for funders, trustees and the annual report.
- Figures are compiled once a year, so problems are found when there is no time to fix them.
What looks like a data problem is a definitions problem first. Automation only helps once the definitions are agreed.
What the annual scramble costs
Weeks of staff time go into compiling numbers that could have been produced in an afternoon. Inconsistent figures across the annual report, trustee papers and funder reports undermine confidence, and trustees rightly ask why.
And because the figures are compiled only once a year, the charity has little sense during the year of whether it is reaching the people it intends to, until it is too late to act.
How we build the measures register
- We work with you to write down each headline measure in plain words: what counts, what does not, the period and the source.
- Each measure is linked to where its data lives, such as your case system, booking tool, CRM or a standard monthly spreadsheet from a project.
- Where people are recorded in more than one project, we agree a matching rule so a unique count is possible, following your data policy.
- Figures are calculated on a schedule, not once a year, and each figure keeps a link to the records behind it.
- A dashboard shows the headline measures for any period: financial year, funder year or quarter.
- When a figure changes after it was reported, the change is shown with the reason, so differences can be explained.
- Exports for the annual report, trustee papers and funders all come from the same calculation.
| Measure | Definition agreed | Source |
|---|---|---|
| People supported | Unique individuals with at least one recorded contact | Case system and session records |
| Calls answered | Advice line calls connected to an adviser | Telephony export |
| Volunteer hours | Hours recorded on rota and sign-in | Volunteer system |
| Befriending matches active | Matches with a contact in the last period | Befriending records |
The register makes figures consistent and traceable. Choosing which figures to publish, and how to describe them, remains with your team and trustees.
Report season afterwards
When the annual report is being written, the communications officer opens the dashboard for the financial year and the headline figures are there, each with its definition. Project leads check their numbers rather than produce them. Trustees see the same figures in their papers through the year, so nothing comes as a surprise.
When a funder asks for a figure for their own grant year, it comes from the same place and matches.
Does your impact reporting look like this?
- Annual report figures are gathered by emailing every project.
- Your figures differ between the annual report, trustee papers and funders.
- Nobody can define exactly what supported means.
- People are counted twice across projects.
- Figures are only compiled once a year.