Simple strategies for highlighting and talking about the power of your journalism

Change. Impact. Accountability. No matter what you call the outcomes from your reporting — in order to identify and benefit from your hard work you’re going to have to measure it. For many nonprofit newsrooms, being able to show the impact of the work is what enables them to raise the funds needed to keep reporting. For reporters, being able to show your stories moved the needle on an issue can help secure the next gig, grant or job opportunity. 

Some of the reasons for measuring impact are geared towards people outside of your organization. Like, funding. Foundations and major and small-dollar donors alike want to know that their money is being put to good use. Impact is the clearest way to show that. Measuring change also helps you publicly demonstrate your mission and purpose. 

Other reasons are internal. Meaningful impact analysis as well as tracking can help clarify and reinforce good editorial decisions and priorities. There’s no shortage of news to cover. But if you’re clear about your impact priorities it will be much easier to decide what stories you apply your resources to. And it will be much easier to articulate those priorities to your team.

An impact-focused approach can also create equity within the newsroom. Journalism can be a very subjective discipline. Stories may be evaluated by prizes, the beauty of the writing or the perceived importance of the issue. Impact cuts through all of that – and points journalists and their editors towards replicable, measurable outcomes. 

There’s (at least) one major caveat when it comes to making change. Some real-world changes are much slower and much harder to achieve than others. When reporting on really complex social and economic problems, we can’t expect change to happen overnight. One way journalists have moved the needle in these cases is to treat the coverage like a “campaign,” in which you don’t move on until you achieve some semblance of accountability (We wrote about this approach in a previous installment).

It’s still incredibly worthwhile to take on these issues. Just remember that making change is a multi-stage process that first requires understanding the problems in enough detail for lawmakers, advocates and the public to take them seriously and commit themselves to finding solutions. 

Impact definitions and a few examples 

We reviewed impact tracking methods from ProPublica, The Center for Investigative Reporting / Reveal, The Markup, The Marshall Project and Documented to identify the common ways nonprofit newsrooms categorize impact.

• Legislative change: Did a lawmaker propose or pass a new law designed to remedy the problem uncovered by your reporting? Example: After ProPublica reported on the consequences of abortion bans, several state lawmakers introduced legislation to expand abortion access. 
• Improved media coverage: Did a news outlet replicate your coverage for their audience using data or resources your reporting uncovered? Or did a local outlet “localize” your national story for their audience? Example: After The Marshall Project published an 2024 election survey of people behind bars, more than 20 outlets published their own stories featuring the perspectives of incarcerated people in their state. 
• Community benefit: Did the community at the center of the problem you covered benefit in some way from your reporting? Are they better able to protect themselves, challenge their lawmakers, or address the problems they’re facing? Example: The Markup helped communities choose more cost-effective Internet service providers after uncovering pricing disparities. 
• Individual benefit: Did individuals at the center of the problem you covered benefit in some way from your reporting? Did they get out of prison, get access to critical resources, win their lawsuit or have another material improvement in their lives? Example: A woman who was doing grassroots-level work to combat misinformation in her community was highlighted in a citywide poster campaign in San Francisco’s bart system and through a video campaign after a Markup article raised attention around her work.
• Institutional change: Did the institution improve its policies, change its business practices, discipline or fire a bad actor? Example: The FBI launched an investigation into a New York City official after Documented and The CITY exposed her dubious fundraising practices.
• Improved transparency: Did your reporting lead to an internal investigation, a new report, taskforce or lead to the release of new public records or other information? Example: The Missouri Department of Corrections released comprehensive annual death totals for the first time in response to repeated questions from The Marshall Project.
• Advocacy: Did your reporting spur a class action lawsuit, advocacy campaign or other form of collective movement? Example: After CIR exposed the health risks of a pesticide used on strawberries in Oxnard, California, a local teachers union put pressure on local officials to get the issue on their agenda, which led to policy changes. 

Strategies for measuring community impact 

Finding out if a law or policy changed in response to your reporting is much easier than knowing if your work improved someone’s life or, like in the example from CIR, if a local teachers’ union was key to getting lawmakers to get your issue on their agenda. Gathering this kind of information requires a closer, long-term relationship with the communities you’re covering. And it requires building in feedback loops for your work so you can solicit anecdotes and examples. 

In simpler terms: You’re going to need to report out your impact the same way you’d report out your stories. Find the people who would know something and ask them questions. We’ve compiled a few steps you can take to assess your impact on the communities you cover. 

• Connect with community leaders. Figure out who the people are in your community that can help you assess how people think and feel about the issue you’re covering at the start of your project and again after you publish. Leaders can be in formal or informal roles like pastors, PTA or tenant board members, movement leaders, or even the local business owners. At the start of your project, you’ll want to tell them about your goals and ask how you can get the information in front of others. Maybe they’ll partner with you on a community event or let you put a note in their newsletter. Keep them informed as you move forward. And at the end of your project, solicit their feedback and ask if there is anything else you should do or know.  
• Encourage people to write to you. When you publish your stories, make it clear you want to hear from people. Include your email or another form of communication on the story post directly. Use social media posts to solicit impact or other forms of feedback. Make it easy for people to find you and make it clear what kinds of anecdotes you’re looking for. 
• Host “office hours.” Invite community leaders or other stakeholders to join you for an hour on Zoom or in real life to talk about the story. This conversation can be as formal or informal as you like, but it should be used as a time to gather information about the impact of your work on individuals or the community. You can also use the time to answer people’s questions or identify additional coverage needs. 
• Design simple surveys. Put up a simple callout asking people to tell you how they used your work. Make sure it’s visible from the stories. And ask community leaders or other stakeholders to share the survey with their network. Keep in mind that people are often inundated with requests for feedback so keep the surveys short and focused. 

A few valuable resources and good reads

• You don’t have to build an entire tracking tool from scratch. The Markup and Impact Architects, a consultancy that helps journalists and others strategize for impact, have both published open-source impact tracking templates.
• If you want to know more about how investigative newsrooms like ProPublica or CIR measure and gather impact, both have written comprehensive white papers that break down their approach. 
• Here is how Lam Vo keeps track of the impact of her reporting on misinformation in immigrant communities with Documented and formerly The Markup.
• A 2026 journalism prediction published in Neiman Lab for why journalists are going to need to take a more active role in the communities they cover. 
• A short read on why the 19th created a new metric to measure the actual reach of its journalism published in CJR. 
• A piece from the Global Investigative Journalism Network that takes an international perspective on impact. 

Cite this article

Lewis, Nicole; and Vo, Lam (2026, Feb. 2). When it’s time to brag about your work: How to define and measure impact. Reynolds Journalism Institute. Retrieved from: https://rjionline.org/news/when-its-time-to-brag-about-your-work-how-to-define-and-measure-impact/