ERG Board Impact Report Checklist

Stage one: lock the source records

Freeze the member roster on a stated datePick one date, export the roster, and print that date on the report. Every membership number in the packet should trace to that export rather than to a distribution list that changed last week.
Pull the attendance file for every eventOne row per person per event, with the date and the format. Where an event has registrations but no check in, mark it unverified rather than quietly substituting the registration count.
Export pulse responses by cycle with response countsKeep the number of respondents next to every result. A six point shift on 22 responses is a story about 22 people, and a finance minded board member will ask which it was.
List every event with date, format and audienceInclude the ones that went badly and the ones you cancelled. A cancelled event with a stated reason reads far better than a gap somebody spots on their own.
Request the budget ledger from finance by line codeAsk for actuals by code, not a single total. Those codes are how finance will read next year's request, so your report should speak in the same lines they do.

Stage two: reconcile the money

Match every invoice to an approved budget lineSpeaker fees, catering, printing, room hire and travel each belong to a line. Anything that will not match is the item to explain yourself before somebody else finds it.
Split committed spend from discretionary spendSpeakers and catering usually absorb most of the year. Showing the split tells your sponsor exactly what a ten percent reduction would remove from the calendar.
Calculate cost per attendee for the year and per eventTotal spend divided by verified seats filled. Do it per event too, because one expensive keynote can hide a very efficient run of lunch sessions underneath it.
Estimate what the volunteer hours would have costCore team hours at a blended internal rate. You are not invoicing for them, you are showing the size of what the company received alongside the cash it spent.
Get written confirmation of the actuals from financeOne email from your finance partner agreeing the numbers stops the meeting turning into an argument about arithmetic instead of a decision about funding.

Stage three: turn activity into outcomes

Pair each program with the outcome it was funded forThe mentoring circle was funded for promotion readiness, not for attendance. Lead with the outcome measure and put attendance underneath it as supporting evidence.
Chart roster growth against attendance growthTwo lines, one chart. If the roster climbs while the room shrinks, name it and say what you are changing, because leadership will see it whether you point at it or not.
Collect three member quotes with explicit permissionAsk each person before you use anything. A short quote attributed by role, such as a senior engineer or a regional sales manager, lands harder than an anonymous block of praise.
Compare this year to last on identical definitionsIf a measure changed definition mid year, show both. Silently redefining a number between reports is the fastest way to lose a room you had already convinced.
Name one thing that did not work and what replaced itA single honest miss buys credibility for everything else in the packet, and experienced executives expect it in any serious program review.

Stage four: package and route it

Cut the packet to one page plus an appendixNumbers, outcomes and the ask go on page one. Methodology, event by event detail and the ledger sit behind it for whoever wants to check your work.
State the ask as a dollar figure against named linesNot more budget. A specific amount per line, what each one buys in programming, and what comes off the calendar if it is not funded.
Send the draft to your executive sponsor firstThe sponsor should never meet a number for the first time in the room. Their edits also tell you what leadership currently cares about this year.
Run a data and accessibility review before circulatingCheck no individual is identifiable in small chapter survey results, that the deck reads without relying on color, and that any employee photo has consent on file.
Book next year's reporting dates in the same emailAsk for the reporting slot while the goodwill is high. A standing date on the calendar is the single thing that stops the two week scramble happening again.

How to use it

Print it or keep it open beside your ledger and work down in order. The stages are sequenced because each one depends on the last: you cannot reconcile spend against attendance you have not verified, and you cannot argue outcomes on numbers finance has not agreed to.

Most ERG leads find stage one takes the longest in the first year and almost no time in the second, because the fix is a habit rather than an effort. Once the roster freeze date, the check in list and the line coded ledger are routine, the two weeks before the board meeting turn into writing rather than excavation.

Send me the editable copy

Send it to yourself as an editable copy you can adapt to your own chapter names, budget lines and reporting calendar.

Questions about this document

When should we start working through this?

Stage one should be running all year, not started in the final month. Set the roster freeze date and the check in habit at the start of the program year, then the last three stages fit comfortably into two weeks before the board meeting.

Our ERG has no formal budget yet. Is this still useful?

Yes, and it is arguably more useful. A first funding request is far stronger with a documented year of attendance, outcomes and volunteer hours behind it, and stages one and three work whether or not any money changed hands.

Who should actually see the report before the board does?

Your executive sponsor first, then your finance partner for the numbers and HR or legal for anything touching member data or stipends. That order matters, because the sponsor will be the one defending the request in the meeting.

Stage one is where most ERG chapters lose the week

The checklist assumes you can freeze a roster on a stated date, export attendance event by event and get actuals from finance by line code. Most chapters can produce two of those three, and the missing one costs a week of chasing invoice copies before the board packet ships. Bring last year's impact report to a demo and we will show you which stages would already have been done.

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The ERG annual impact report readiness checklist