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It’s the worst thing ever. That moment when you’ve been working with a client, community members, or some other form of stakeholder, and you have to bring the bad news.

I recently got this email from a nonprofit professional (and FYI: I’ve removed identifying information):

My nonprofit has created a program that seeks to increase the importance of physical activity among young indigenous youth in a rural community where there’s a lack of access to gyms and other places that would make it easier for youth to be more active. The stakeholders were expecting that the activities included in the program would resonate with the youth. In my nonprofit, I’ve been charged to carry out an evaluation of this program. We used surveys and focus groups with the youth participants. The results of the evaluation were that the participants weren’t interested in the activities, which aligned with the lack of participation. In fact, the results showed that the participants have developed more creative means to get in physical activity, but they brought up the need for other quality of life services that the program wasn’t addressing. The results could potentially impact the funding that was given to this program, as the funders were expecting that the program would be a success. What’s the best way to handle this?

Dealing with funders and leadership can be tricky, and nonprofits know all too well the stress of proving that a program or service is successful to stakeholders.

So, how do you share unexpected results in a way that is diplomatic and addresses concern head on?

Make it participatory from the start

I’ve worked with clients who had the expectation that I would come in, ready to go, with all the surveys, focus group questions, and in-depth interviews scheduled. They just want someone to come in and do the work for them. When I noticed this happening, I began to push back against working with clients in this way, and in encouraging current clients and potential clients in developing a participatory way of working together. From determining data collection tools to developing questions to ask participants (and even getting everyone together to interpret the data), when you make feedback gathering participatory from the start, it creates buy-in, puts everyone on the same page, and makes everything more transparent. When people are more involved, it makes this process more fun (at least for me), and everyone learns in the process.

And here’s a secret: When you make it participatory, it improves the likelihood that recommendations from the evaluation are actually implemented.

Address expectations and potential consequences 

When you ask your stakeholders what they intend the outcome of their program to be, also ask this:

“What if what we’re expecting doesn’t happen?”

Ideally, we create programs or services based on theory, research, and what’s happen in our community. It builds the foundation to do some meaningful work. Can you believe there are nonprofits actually create programs or services because it just sounds like a good idea? You’d be surprised. So, can we really feel some type of way when we get results that we weren’t expecting, and in the case of the nonprofit above, it sounds like a program was created to address a need that the community has already dealt with.

But when we follow the theory, research, and community input, yet the outcome is still not what we’re expecting?

Determine if it really is bad

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