Telling your program s story

Telling your program’s story

Session #3: Frame your measures to

tell the story you want

Overview of the series

# 1: Storytelling strategies for improved reporting

● Report structure ● What questions are

useful? What questions are missing?

● Different sources for reporting

# 2: Infographics and the visual display of information

● How does data and information connect to tell a story? ● Using color coding. ● Use of infographics. ● Find the media to

showcase your program.

# 3: Frame your measures to tell the story you want

● How to talk about advocacy in the report. ● Why does *this*

partnership matter? ● The report as a

Wikimedia is a global movement whose mission is to bring

free educational content to the world; through various

projects, programs and chapters work, and the support

structure of the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation,

Wikimedia strives to bring about a world in which every

single human being can freely share in the sum of all

knowledge.

Why framing?

(KL)

Some elements refer to a global scene: world; sum of all knowledge.

Education priorities

Cultural agenda

To point out shared interests

(MC)

How do you bring your local context to the world? How do you bring

the world to your local context?

In the movement’s mission, global and local elements have to be combined to reach shared goals.

Within a specific location, there can can be certain education needs that are relevant to that city / country (eg, professional training, educational software), as well as a certain cultural Agenda (eg., appraising of local history, awareness of local contemporary artists, etc).

By identifying these needs on the local level, program leaders and community members can design projects that include global products, yet fit the local context in the appropriate way.

This is known as Glocalization, a means of combining the idea of globalization with that of local considerations.

EDUCATION AGENDA

CULTURAL AGENDA

To highlight relevance to an audience.

(MC)

How is the local agenda built? Why do you want to be in it?

The agenda for education and culture in a country is normally set by government offices, and by public and private organizations that influence policy making. This is commonly known as the third type of Agenda Setting, or the ability to influence the public conversation and line of action around certain topics.

By framing your actions in a way that makes them relevant to the local context, a program leader or organization is not only talking to the movement, but to local actors of relevance.

Process

To make clear pathways for support.

Context

Goals

(MC)

How do we frame?

What is the story you want to tell?

● Illustrate trends and patterns

● Present a descriptive story

● Deliver a quick and clear message

What would you like to focus the story on?

● Strengths (achievements and opportunities)

● Deficits (problems and needs)

At what intervals should we measure?

What should we measure?

Story mapping

tools & strategies

Inputs

Outputs

Outcomes

Impact

Setting

(Date & Place)

Date Who What Outcome Status

Dec. 1 Jane Resource need Sent 1 box booklets Complete Dec. 1 John Resource need Needs consultation In progress Dec. 1 Yuan Data question Sent link to report Complete

Characters (Who) Problem (What) Solution (Outcome/Status) Theme and photographic evidence

(JA)

Key Players, Exchanges, Interrelations & directionality, etc.

Notes from chat btwn Kacie & Maria about Logs and journaling:

KH: in many/most cases I don't know that we are concerned with the steps that have happened in a project, but rather, why any of it matters - I'm sure I shared my example of reading 350 words in one section of a report about mini grants where every step of the project was discussed, but no information was given on how many grants were given out, or, what strategy they had developed in their mini grant program.

Use existing records!

What strategies do you use to communicate

already?

e

(KH)

1.

Many of you already use blogs and social media to tell your community

about projects, contests and events. These can be really helpful records

to refer to when it is time to report on your work. If you are using tags in

your blog posts, you can bring up all of your posts on a particular topic,

such as contests, and give them a quick read. This may help you

identify a storyline in how your program and objectives have

progressed.

2.

Another thing I notice in blog posts is that the way you write about

projects and programs tends to be more story-like than I see in reports.

Keep this in mind as you are writing reports, being sure to tell report

readers what happened but also why it matters and what you want them

to take away from the report, much like you do in social media.

3.

You can also use Storify to pull together tweets, news articles, photos

What can you measure in existing

records?

What strategies can you use to get at participants directly?

TIME

ACTION

Background goals Activities / Process / Targets

Outcomes * Appendix Next steps Conclusions

...Keep focused...

(KH)

Prioritizing: Choosing only 1 or 2 goals and keeping to your storyline

The role of Goals and Measures in telling a story:

1.

By determining the goals a project or program has, a person is choosing the story they will tell in advance. Any given community may have a series of aspects to work on, but by choosing one or two, the program leader is giving the first step in framing. Compared to the process of writing a story, here the author says “this is my topic”. For example, if you are planning a photo contest you will ask yourself, “what do I want to happen because of this project, or, what do I want to change as a result of this project.” Your answer might include a lot of goals like reaching new contributors, illustrating more articles, or improving the quality of images on a particular topic. By choosing just one goal to focus on you will determine the activities and measures necessary to reach that goal, which will lead to clearer actions and clearer outcomes.

2.

The activities you execute will change the context you work in. But how? What

Defining your measures is equivalent to writing the climax and ending in a story.

Being clear about framing your goals and measuring outcomes will make it easier to help others to maintain focus on your project.

...when things don’t ‘measure up’

Set Goal Plan

Strategy Measure Outcomes Think again! tweak a few things

Your story should focus on changes to your goal and strategies.

(KH) How to talk about failure in your reports.

We all know that things do not always go according to plan, though, and that is OK. When you are writing a report about a project that did not follow the story you were planning to tell, the way you write the story in a report will change a little bit, but focus is still important. You still need to define what your initial goal was and what

outcomes you did measure. But the story should not end there.

Instead, you may share a few key details about what may have gone wrong or what factors blocked you from achieving your goal and what you will change to achieve that goal in the future.

This is a good time to ask yourself whether you had the right goal in mind when you started, and whether your assumptions about what activities were necessary to achieve that goal were correct. Then describe how this experience has changed the goal, measures or strategies you will use in the future.

Being able to show how your how and why your goals and strategy change when things don’t go according to plan is a powerful way to demonstrate to grant

Find your story & tell it!

(MC)

WMDE: Reporting on Advocacy

(KL) Introduce Dimi & Nikki Zeuner. Dimi is a Free knowledge ambassador, leading the Free Knowledge Advocacy Working Group - EU, based in

Brussels

, the heart of

European politics.

WMAR:

Framing local problems

For each goal, a “Problem tree” was developed

Each layer is later on

addressed with a specific line of action.

Local context to build a work frame

How to make a problem tree? By WMAR

WMNL: A thematic approach to programs

A thematic approach to programs

Develop partnerships with institutions that already have a focus on that topic.

Engage new volunteers that are already actively involved in that topic.

Other resources

● Logic Models: Page on Evaluation Portal. ● Glocalization: article on Wikipedia.

● Agenda Setting theory: article on Wikipedia.

● Impact, Influence, Leverage, & Learning (I2L2) Outcomes Framework

● Further resources shared by WMDE:

○ Free Knowledge Advocacy Group EU

○ WMDE Logic Model EU Advocacy

○ Advocacy Change Model

○ Measuring Outcomes thru Change Models