Policymakers, journalists, nonprofit practitioners and activists rely on nonprofit research to do their jobs. Are you giving them what they need? To generate the biggest impact from the knowledge shared, your research report should be engaging to the various audiences it will touch, and not simply to a narrow group of analysts or academics. Today, a very wide range of readers engages with nonprofit research, not only because of a growing desire to learn and educate about causes individuals support, but also because Web 2.0 and initiatives like IssueLab have made it increasingly easy to locate, access and share research.

So here are three easy things to keep in mind when you are planning and designing your next research report.

1. Make your research usable, and re-usable. Choosing a restrictive copyright can discourage readers from sharing or using your information – even for a good cause. An easy way to apply non-restrictive but legitimate copyrights to a document is using Creative Commons.

2. Leave Them Asking for More. The research abstract can be a great way to generate further interest in the entire body of work, but really it should tell a journalist on deadline everything they need to know. So, distill valuable information, make the abstract comprehensive and quotable, but don’t just copy and paste the executive summary.

3. Get the facts out there. Once your report is released, go through it and extract short phrases, quotes, and statistics that can easily be shared online. Micro-blogging (sending brief text updates) has become an increasingly important skill and tool for organizations that wish to keep constituents informed. Lastly, always make sure you include a direct link to your report listing page or .pdf – nothing worse than not finding the source of good information!

By Luise Barnikel, IssueLab