How you evaluate your work depends on your audience. Who do you want to communicate the outcomes of your project to and why?

• Telling consumers about the outcomes of your project is very helpful for continuing to generate interest in the project and recruit future participants.
• People in your local community may have resources that they can put toward the project that can help continue its development and make it a regular feature of your community.
• Regional, state, and national governments and organizations may have resources they can allocate for the continued success of your project.

It’s a good idea to keep these different audiences in the back of your mind as you begin to consider potential community living projects and the outcomes they would like to track as they develop and implement a project.

Demonstrate success

How you show that the project made a difference depends a little bit on the target audience you want to reach. Local and regional audiences may be moved by stories and pictures. State and national audiences might also want to see change that was measured with numbers (e.g., number of visits to the fitness gym). You may present stories or brief presentations to local and regional audiences, but regional and national audiences may be moved to action by fact sheets and reports, in addition to stories and pictures. How you show that a project was successful depends somewhat on which audience you want to reach.