Preliminary Assessment of Taft Middle School Prevention Activities | Evaluation Report Outline | Developing a Presentation | Options for Sharing Information | Selecting Your Audience |

As the primary spokesperson for your prevention initiative, you are responsible for communicating evaluation findings to a variety of audiences. This document includes tips for developing a well-organized presentation of your findings.

• Set presentation goals. Ask yourself: What is the purpose of this presentation? Why am I addressing this audience? How can they help me achieve my goal? What am I asking for? Here are a few things you might be looking for:

• Money and in-kind resources for your initiative

• Volunteers for project activities

• Influence in changing a program, policy, or practice

• Input on how to make the initiative more responsive

• Suggestions on overcoming resistance to the initiative

• Ideas on how the initiative can become more effective

• Review results ahead of time. Review the results of your evaluation with program staff before you write up your evaluation report and develop your presentation. You may want to just distribute a memo outlining the results and then hold a staff meeting to talk about it. This gives you a chance to get your staff's input on the meaning of the findings, as well as the opportunity to talk about any ambiguous data.

• Share findings with key decision-makers first. Share and discuss your report with the superintendent, principals, and community leaders before you release your report to the public. This is especially important if your evaluation findings make it clear that there will be a need for any changes in policies. Policymakers or agency officials may wish to make a public response to your findings as well.

• Use charts and tables. If you decide to do an oral presentation, develop a few charts and tables -- 5 to 10 should be plenty -- that illustrate key findings. Make sure to make multiple copies to distribute to your audience. You may also wish to distribute a single summary sheet of program results.

• Cover the basics. Begin your presentation by explaining why you conducted the evaluation, what questions you asked, why you chose those questions, and the methods you used to answer them.

• Know your audience. Determine the information they need and why they need it. For example, the make-up of your audience will determine whether you simply highlight your evaluation results or go into great detail about what you found. Be sure to explain possible implications the results may have for your audience. If the evaluation findings have led you to any particular conclusions about what your group should do in the future, talk about them.

Remember, evaluation findings -- both good and bad -- should play a key role in the development of your sustainability plan. Positive findings will help you justify why your initiative should continue and garner support, policy changes, and/or additional funding. Negative findings, though frustrating, can help you determine where adjustments need to be made so that you can pursue support and funding to improve your efforts.

Adapted from Hampton, C. (2002). Communicating information to funders for support and accountability. University of Kansas: Community Toolbox. Available online at http://ctb.lsi.ukans.edu/tools/EN/sub_section_main_1376.htm .