Who should hear the evaluation results first?
The people who should hear the evaluation results first are the ones who provided the information: participants, their families where appropriate, and the community partners who helped make the evaluation possible. They should hear the findings before, or at the same time as, funders, the media, or the general public. Returning results to them recognizes that the evaluation depended on their time and honesty. It also gives them an opportunity to respond to what was found.
Professional standards support this. The American Evaluation Association's Guiding Principles, updated in 2025, ask evaluators to share data and findings transparently with everyone who has an interest in an evaluation, including the people affected by the program being evaluated.
Sharing results with participants usually requires a different format from the one you'd use for a funder. A short summary in plain language, a community meeting, or a conversation with a partner organization's staff may serve them better than a technical report. If the evaluation was carried out with students or participants under IRB oversight, check what participants were told about how results would be shared, and follow it.
How do we keep people from being identified when we share results?
To keep people from being identified when you share results, report findings for groups rather than individuals, and look carefully at any detail that could point to a specific person. Removing names isn't always enough. In a small program or a close-knit community, a result reported for a group of three people, a quotation that mentions a particular job or family situation, or a description of one location can make it clear who provided the information.
Before anything is shared, read it as a member of the community would. Ask whether someone who knows the program could work out who said what. If the answer is yes, combine the small group with a larger one, remove the identifying detail, or leave that finding out of the public version and share it only with the program team. These decisions are easier if they were planned when the information was collected, which is the subject of How do we evaluate students or participants ethically?
When can we use a participant's words or story?
You can use a participant's words or story when they have given permission for that specific use, when their privacy is protected, and when the context that gives the story its meaning is preserved. A quotation that was offered in a confidential focus group isn't automatically available for a fundraising appeal or a social media post. If a participant agreed to have their words included in an evaluation report, ask again before using them anywhere else.
Preserving context matters as much as permission. A sentence taken from a longer answer can change its meaning, and a story chosen only because it's moving can misrepresent what most participants experienced. Never use a story simply because it's emotionally compelling. Whether a story or a statistic should lead is a separate question, covered in Should we lead with stories or statistics when we talk about impact?, and What makes an impact story credible instead of just emotional? covers how to pair stories with evidence.
How do we share results the community may find difficult to hear?
To share results the community may find difficult to hear, present them honestly and with their context, explain what may account for them, and say what the organization is doing in response. Softening a difficult finding, or leaving it out of the version shared with participants, can damage trust more than the finding itself. That's particularly true if participants later learn that the funder or the board heard something different.
Difficult results are also a reason to involve the community in interpreting them. Participatory approaches such as listening sessions, or Ripple Effects Mapping (tracing what a program set off, including what nobody planned), bring participants into the conversation about what the findings mean and what should happen next. Participants may understand the conditions behind a result in ways the program team can't see in the data alone. If the results suggest the program isn't working as intended, What if the evaluation shows my program isn't working? covers what to do next.
The Grantibly perspective
Angelika's perspective
We pay attention to who is included, who is missing, who holds decision-making power, and what conditions affect results. That attention doesn't end when the data has been collected. When results go back to a community, one of the first questions we ask is whose perspective we're missing.
People who take part in an evaluation are owed follow-through. Tell them what you learned and what's changing because of it.
We also never use a participant's story merely because it's emotionally compelling. Story use requires permission, privacy protection, and preserved context, because the people who shared their experiences deserve to be represented accurately.
