Program Evaluation: Measuring Impact and Reporting

For Administrator / Athletic Director

Doing prevention is good. Proving it works is better. This playbook helps administrators evaluate their prevention program's effectiveness — not just whether activities happened, but whether they changed anything. It covers what to measure, how to measure it, and how to report results to stakeholders who control budgets.

Steps

Define your outcomes: what changes do you want to see? (knowledge, attitudes, behavior, reporting rates, incident rates)
Use pre/post surveys: measure knowledge and attitudes before and after prevention programming.
Track behavioral indicators: reporting rates, bystander intervention frequency, climate survey results over time.
Compare to baselines: what were things like before your prevention program?
Use validated instruments where possible: CDC and RPE programs have established survey tools.
Report annually to stakeholders: athletic department, school board, national headquarters, or board of trustees.
Include both quantitative data and qualitative data (anecdotes, focus groups).
Be honest about what's not working — reporting failures builds credibility and guides improvement.
Use evaluation results to justify budget requests.
Benchmark against peer institutions.