Measuring the impact of your community engagement journalism

There are dozens of papers and case studies and academic research and tip-sheets all about measuring journalism’s impact and measuring the impact of community engagement. It is an evolving science and impact can be as individual and unique as each station or each project. 

I’ve distilled the best advice and put together this template/outline for you to find your way to measure your own impact.  (And have included links below for you to read more, if you’d like!)

• Start with defining what impact you want your project/initiative to have. Work with your entire newsroom or entire organization - bring in your Community Advisory Board -  to define your own metrics of success and make sure they are aligned with your organization’s mission. 
  Let whoever is in charge of your website and/or social media handle the digital analytics — for this process, find metrics that really speak to community engagement and to the development and nurturing of community relationships. 
  Here are some possibilities to consider — pick just a few:

  • Story ideas come to you from the community

  • More diverse voices on the air

  • Partnerships brokered and maintained with community groups and or other media

  • New or strengthened community networks (you’ve brought community groups together who haven’t collaborated in the past)

  • Increased attendance at listening events (and increased diversity of people present at such events)

  • Increased number of enterprise stories sourced through community engagement 

  • Increased number of new sources/contacts established

  • Solutions found (to whatever challenging issues faces the community)

  • Community members are helping to substantially shape the journalistic product

  • Policy reform

  • Content used by an advocacy or community organization to share information

  • Favorable response from audience members to content
    

• Create a database to track those metrics. It can be a google form that feeds into a spreadsheet, or a customized airtable chart or software developed specifically to track impact or impact tracker spreadsheet from Hearken.
  

• Share what you are tracking with your audience and membership, through digital posts, on-air stories, in your station’s newsletter, on your station’s social  accounts. Let them know why this matters and how they helped. Share what you are tracking with your membership, marketing and development teams -- impact can bring in financial support.

Further Reading:

• The steps suggested in this template were, in part, lifted from the News Media Alliance tip sheet.

• Meetr - A tool developed by the Agora Journalism Center that helps journalists measure the value of community engagement

• The folks at Hearken have written about a positive feedback loop that can happen with stories rooted in contributions from the public.

• The American Press Institute has a Metrics for News analytics tool that looks at a customized blend of metrics called an Engagement Score — including page views, time on page and social media engagement — to see which story types readers care about the most.

• The film industry has long used “Impact Producers” 

• Solutions Journalism Network has their own impact tracker

• The Global Investigative Journalism Network outlined 6 different impact trackers for media makers and funders

• The Impact Architects’ Lindsay Green-Barber developed an Impact Tracker during her time at Reveal that has been influential throughout public media.

• Jmr’s 10 step program