The Spacehive impact reporting tool is a step-by-step process which, provided that you have some data about your project to hand, shouldn't take more than 30 minutes to complete. Some of the questions are simple yes/no answers, others are open text boxes for you to write what you want, and others are data inputs related to your project (for example, if when you created your project you told us that it would help promote volunteering, then you will be asked to enter how many volunteers you have supported, etc).
You should only aim to do the report when you are ready. If your project hasn't been up and running for long enough to demonstrate any impact, then simply wait a bit longer until you feel ready. Obviously it is better to do it sooner rather than later, as backers will be keen to hear from you.
Before you begin the report, it will help you to have the following to hand:
- Any links to media coverage you've received
- Details about any events you've hosted
- New project images
You should also consider the following questions (you might want to ask any colleagues to feed into them):
- Explain what you've done since hitting your target - what have you been up to? How have you been delivering your project?
- What advice would you give other people thinking about running a crowdfunding campaign?
- What challenges did you face with your project and how did you overcome them?
You should also have some data about your project. Go to your Project Dashboard and on the left-hand menu there is a section labelled 'Your Impact'. Here you can remind yourself of what impact you said your project would have. Most of these answers are quantifiable, so try to get hold of this data in advance of starting the impact report.