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Monitoring, Reviewing, Reporting
Regular monitoring and review of progress is central to achieving effective community engagement. Successful engagement should also include setting targets and developing a clear implementation plan. This approach can be used to evaluate progress and performance against objectives and targets, and as a means of developing or revising objectives and targets for the future, with a focus on improving performance.
Regular reporting is also very important. Reporting delivers an internal overview of progress against stated values, and performance against targets. It also provides a powerful tool through which the organisation strengthens its engagement with internal and external stakeholders. It provides a route through which feedback on progress can be incorporated into future strategic and tactical reviews to achieve further improvements.
You should consider revising your approach to annual reporting by providing an annual sustainability statement, which includes environmental and social impacts as well as financial outcomes or student achievements.
One tool that can be used to help providers measure their overall performance in terms of sustainable development and community engagement is: "Community Engagement and Sustainable Development". (This is currently under development and being produced by the Worldwide Fund for Nature and CAG consultants).
The main purpose of the tool is to:
…..evaluate the impact of community engagement on people’s behaviour with regard to sustainable development. The tool has been developed for use by practitioners with two aims in mind:
• to help practitioners evaluate the impact of projects, programmes or interventions for their own use; and
• to gather information to feed into a wider WWF / CAG research programme which will explore the impact of community engagement on sustainable development behaviour.
The research flowing from the development of the tool will examine when and in what circumstances, community engagement leads to change, and will be used to inform policy makers and practitioners alike.
There are also other, more formal (voluntary) routes that can be used to publicise how good a corporate citizen a provider is:
• Corporate Responsibility: organisations can have their policies and procedures externally verified by independent companies. They can also sign up to Business in the Community's CR Index the UK’s leading benchmark of responsible business, helping companies to integrate and improve responsible business across their business and providing a systematic approach to managing, measuring and reporting their impacts on society and the environment. See Leadership and Management for more information
• The Eco Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) is an accredited Environmental Management System under which organisations must publicise their environmental statement and have this externally verified. See Buildings and Estates for more information.
Regular reporting is also very important. Reporting delivers an internal overview of progress against stated values, and performance against targets. It also provides a powerful tool through which the organisation strengthens its engagement with internal and external stakeholders. It provides a route through which feedback on progress can be incorporated into future strategic and tactical reviews to achieve further improvements.
You should consider revising your approach to annual reporting by providing an annual sustainability statement, which includes environmental and social impacts as well as financial outcomes or student achievements.
One tool that can be used to help providers measure their overall performance in terms of sustainable development and community engagement is: "Community Engagement and Sustainable Development". (This is currently under development and being produced by the Worldwide Fund for Nature and CAG consultants).
The main purpose of the tool is to:
…..evaluate the impact of community engagement on people’s behaviour with regard to sustainable development. The tool has been developed for use by practitioners with two aims in mind:
• to help practitioners evaluate the impact of projects, programmes or interventions for their own use; and
• to gather information to feed into a wider WWF / CAG research programme which will explore the impact of community engagement on sustainable development behaviour.
The research flowing from the development of the tool will examine when and in what circumstances, community engagement leads to change, and will be used to inform policy makers and practitioners alike.
There are also other, more formal (voluntary) routes that can be used to publicise how good a corporate citizen a provider is:
• Corporate Responsibility: organisations can have their policies and procedures externally verified by independent companies. They can also sign up to Business in the Community's CR Index the UK’s leading benchmark of responsible business, helping companies to integrate and improve responsible business across their business and providing a systematic approach to managing, measuring and reporting their impacts on society and the environment. See Leadership and Management for more information
• The Eco Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) is an accredited Environmental Management System under which organisations must publicise their environmental statement and have this externally verified. See Buildings and Estates for more information.
