How to show programme results with real people, not just numbers

Most results reports open with a table: households reached, people trained, loans issued. The figures are true, but readers rarely remember them. When you show programme results with real people, the reader sees what a figure means in one life, and the number becomes believable.

The opposite mistake is just as common. A moving story with no data behind it can feel like marketing. A sceptical donor or ministry official will ask whether this person is typical, or the one success in a hundred.

Showing real change matters to public trust. In the Charity Commission for England and Wales's 2026 research, 51% of people said that a charity making a real difference to the people and communities it serves was a key driver of their trust, up from 45% the year before.¹

The aim is a pairing. Each person you feature should stand for a result you can measure, and each headline number should have a face or a voice that explains it. This guide is about making that link deliberately. If you need help writing the story itself, see our guides to case studies and human-interest stories, linked below.

A well-known set of experiments by Deborah Small, George Loewenstein and Paul Slovic paid people $5 for a short survey and then gave them the chance to donate to a children's charity. A single named child, Rokia, drew much more generosity than statistics about food shortages affecting millions.² The researchers frame this as the difference between identifiable and statistical victims.³

The more surprising finding was what happened when the two were combined. In one experiment, people gave $2.38 on average after reading Rokia's story alone, but $1.43 when statistics were added to it.³ The numbers did not add weight; they seemed to cool the reader's response.²

Results reporting is not the same as a fundraising appeal, and accountability needs data. But the lesson still applies:

• Let the person lead. Open with them, in their own words.
• Keep numbers few, plain and close to the person's change.
• Do not bury a story under a wall of figures, or a figure under a long story.

The most important decision is who you feature. Programme teams often suggest the star participant, the one whose business grew tenfold. That story may be true, but if it is not typical it misleads readers about what the programme usually achieves.

Ask your monitoring team three questions before you choose:

• What does the typical change look like for most participants?
• Who experienced that typical change, and would they like to share it?
• Is there a contrasting story, such as someone for whom things did not work, that would make the picture more honest?

Bond's Evidence Principles and checklist give NGOs a tool for assessing and improving the quality of evidence in evaluation reports, research reports and case studies.⁴ Applying the same discipline to communications protects your credibility. If you do feature an exceptional person, say so plainly: one of the strongest results we saw, not a typical participant.

A simple method is to build every story around a pair: one result and one person. Write the pair down before you film, photograph or interview anyone.

• The result. One indicator from your results framework, with its figure and source, for example the share of trained farmers who adopted a new practice.
• The person. Someone whose experience shows that result, chosen with the programme team.
• The change. What is different for them now, described in their words.
• The context. What else contributed, such as family support, other programmes or the weather. Do not claim all the credit.
• The limits. What has not changed yet, or what remains hard.

This pairing keeps writers, photographers and editors focused. It also gives the reader a clear route from the human detail to the wider evidence.

The same pairing works across formats, as long as the person and the figure appear close together.

• Report spreads. Place a portrait and short quotation beside the chart it relates to, with a one-line caption linking them.
• Short documentary. Let the person carry the film, then show one or two numbers on screen near the end, with the source.
• Social media. One image, one sentence of the person's words, one figure. Link to the full report.
• Presentations. Start a section with the person, then show the result. Return to them at the end of the section.

In our own practice, we agree the indicator with the programme team before the shoot, so the filmed story and the reported number always match.

Featuring someone as the face of a result is a significant ask. Bond's statement on ethical content gathering calls informed consent the cornerstone of ethical practice. It commits organisations to use contributors' own words wherever they can and to improve understanding of both people's capabilities and resilience and the complexities of the challenges they face.⁵

The Dóchas Guide to Ethical Communications, launched in 2023, makes consent a central tenet. It aims to ensure that people in even the most vulnerable situations retain authority and control over their own story.⁶

In practice that means explaining that the person's story will be linked to programme results, and where it will appear. Offer to share the draft. Avoid before-and-after framing that makes the past look shameful. Take extra care with children: UNICEF's ethical reporting guidelines ask for permission from both the child and their guardian, and for identities to be protected where a child could face risk.⁷ Never make a child the symbol of a failure.

Copy this into your planning document for every story you collect.

• Indicator and figure, with source and date.
• Is this result typical, above average or an exception?
• Person featured, chosen with whom and why.
• Consent recorded: what for, which channels, for how long.
• The person's change, in their words (one or two quotations).
• Other factors that contributed.
• What has not changed yet.
• Safeguarding notes: children, location details, risks of identification.
• Formats planned: report, film, social, presentation.
• Draft shared with the person or their representative: yes or no.
• Caption that links the person to the figure.

A filled template takes ten minutes. It saves hours of argument later about whether a story was fair.