How to write a progress report

Working in the NGO is a challenging job especially for the new one ; report writing skill is one of the keys in acquiring a good position with a good salary as well. For those who intend to work in the field of NGO they have to enhance the writing skills to be able to prepare a better project report and this will be their edge.

I have done my research on how to write a report because, I wanted to improve my writing ability and I found out they have almost the same tips on writing which I’ll mentioning here in my blog. There are different kinds of reports but I’ll take the first one the Progress Report.

Progress Report refers to any routine progress write ups which can be done in a monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, bi-annually or annually. This report is different from a situation report (sitrep), situation report merely indicates what had happened and what was done about it at the time of reporting. 

According to Phil Bartle Ph.D, a well known Sociologist, the most important source of information about any project is the routine monthly progress reports, if they are written in a right way. The donors, the headquarter of the implementing agencies, the leaders in the target group, the authority  monitoring the project and administering the donor’s fund, all need to know how well and how much the project activities led to reach the project goals and objectives. 

The important differentiation of progress report is to determine between: the project activities (inputs), and the results of those activities (outputs) or, the effects on the target beneficiaries. Even though progress report differs from among format but, the general design is the presence of two major headings which are the (a) activities, and (b) results, for each project objective, bring out a section for (a) activities and, (b) results of those activities.

A good progress report is not just a descriptive activity report, but it must be thoroughly analyzed the result of those reported activities. The analysis must answer the enquiry of “How much the project objectives have been reached? So, since you are the resource person of the project you can go beyond just the description of the activities in your progress report.

Tips:

Always review the project objective before writing any monthly progress report. Project objectives can be found in the “Project Document”. For analytical factor of progress report, list down those objectives, each as a separate section with separate sub title, and make an analysis of how well the project current activities towards achieving    each objective. Determined where the project objective have not been reached or if it is over reached, or any quantitative aspect of it, includes an explanation of WHY.