People Reached

This indicator shows the extent to which the advocacy campaign and its key messages reached members of the public. It is relevant for campaigns where reaching a more significant number of people is vital for achieving objectives.

Determine the indicator's value by using the following methodology:

1) Define what can be counted as “reached”. In the case of some campaigns, this might be the number of social media users who saw the campaign’s content. In other contexts, it might be the number of people engaged in a discussion about the advocated topics. This has to be defined depending on the context and focus of the intervention.

2) Count the total number of people reached, per the criteria set in the previous point. Depending on the communication channels used, this might be through using social media metrics, reviewing documents (e.g. reports, attendance sheets) or other evidence (e.g. number of people listening to a radio programme that was used). Since it is likely that a project used multiple channels that might have reached the same people, consider whether it is possible to avoid double counting.

Disaggregate the data by gender, age group, passive versus active reach (see below) and other criteria relevant to the context and focus of the project.

1) If you used multiple communication channels, it is likely that there will be some overlap in the reach achieved by each channel, which will result in double counting the people you reached. Unless your campaign can quantify how big the overlap was (e.g. by surveying the target audience members), the best thing you can do is to 1) acknowledge that there might be an overlap; and 2) report on the reach achieved by the individual channels, in addition to reporting the total reach.

2) To gain more meaningful data, consider differentiating between:

   - passive reach, such as the number of people who saw the campaign’s social media post or read an article

    - active reach, such as the number of people who attended meetings, were engaged in an online discussion, etc. 

3) Report on the responses you received from people who were reached by the campaign.