December 3, 2019
Focus on Quarterly Effort Reports Results in 1,004,690 Contacts
Recently, an Extension colleague asked me if the extra focus toward quarterly reporting had made a difference. The answer is YES! In fact, this last year we reported 1,004,690 direct educational contacts. The year before, the total number of contacts reported was 649,609.
From the chart, you can see that this year’s quarterly effort report numbers are higher than we’ve reported in six years. That is a significant increase and I believe more representative of the great work by KSRE professionals. Thank you to all the Extension professionals that completed their reports!
As a tax supported organization, we have a responsibility to share information about both our productivity and impact. This is how we demonstrate our relevance and importance to stakeholders at the federal, state and local levels. We use the number of direct educational contacts in combination with program impact information that we receive through Program Focus Teams, impact reports in PEARS and other Making a Difference Reports to help us meet our reporting responsibilities to various stakeholders including NIFA Annual Report of Accomplishments, PFT Annual Report, Kansas Legislature, Governor’s Children’s Budget and other legislative inquiries.
Local units should also be using information about educational contacts and impacts to regularly inform your board, commissioners and other stakeholders about the great work your local unit is doing.
We still have work to do – not only in making sure that all Extension professionals are reporting but also in increasing the accuracy in reporting numbers. Recently, we announced the posting of a new document, “KSRE Guidelines for Reporting Direct Educational Contacts” that provides information about completing the quarterly effort reports as well as frequently asked questions.
Again, thanks for your focused efforts to complete the quarterly effort reports. As you can see, it does make a difference!