NOW IT’S YOUR TURN . . . Write an Impact Statement for Your Agriculture and Natural Resources Program Linda J. Brewer Senior Faculty Research Assistant Department of Horticulture Oregon State University

Impact Statements Justify the investment of public dollars. The consequences of what we do; Follows evaluation – data collection; Environmental, social, economic; Can be planned or unintended; positive or negative; Attribution vs. impact. What is an impact statement anyway? Impacts are changes that come as a result of our work, combined with other influences. Impacts come after data is collected analyzed and interpreted. Impacts can be economic, environmental or social. The adoption of email by a grower group in north central oregon was an unintended, but positive impact that occurred when a new field faculty member couldn’t afford the expected print newsletter. By contrast, the accumulation of lead arsenate insecticides in soils, the resulting contamination, and our living with it even today is an UNINTENDED NEGATIVE impact. John, if you’d be so kind as to put up the first poll, please. 2 2

Parts of an Impact Statement Part 1: Issue; Part 2: Goal or mission statement; Part 3: Outputs =What you did; Part 4: Outcomes =What changed; Part 5: Impact =Interpretation of outcomes. The Three Parts of an Impact statement are Outcomes, Outputs, Situation I’ve put numerals on the logic mode lto indicate where those part of an impact statement are planned. In keeping with the idea of starting with the end in mind, let’s look at each of these parts individually, beginning with the statement of outcome.

The Issue: First Sentence General Fact – generally accepted Example: Oregon produces 99% of US commercial hazelnuts, with farmgate sales at $60-75 million per year.

The Issue: Second Sentence Local fact - generally agreed upon about your state, region, or county. Example: Pacific Northwest hazelnut acreage increased from 1905 until 1970 when Eastern Filbert Blight was discovered in the growing region. Since that time, acreage has declined; commercial production outside the Willamette Valley is virtually non-existent.

The Issue: Third Sentence Focus of Concern for your program. Example: Oregon has lost 1600 of about 30,000 acres of hazelnuts to Eastern Filbert Blight in the past decade. More than 70% of Oregon orchards are infected, or are close to diseased orchards. Eastern Filbert Blight control costs about $310 per acre per year.

Program Mission or Goal Statement of Goals: The goal of this project is to develop disease-resistant hazelnuts adapted to production outside the Pacific Northwest. Write this first? Complete this sentence: Our mission was to . . . My goal in creating this program was to . . .

Outputs: What You Did With the support of USDA NIFA SCRI funding, the ‘Gasaway’ gene confers resistance to Eastern Filbert Blight; it is now fully mapped and characterized. Fully resistant selections from the breeding program are crossed with susceptible cultivars to improve desirable characteristics. See Tip #4. Notice the verb – what you did always includes verbs Recognition of funder cannot be over-stressed. Always get credit for what YOU do. Strong impact statements get used by administrators at various levels; there will be plenty of opportunity for credit to be “watered down.” Experiments, trials, publications, degrees conferred are outputs. So few people are willing to use the first person singular; in SOARS that’s OK.

What You Did: Specific Outputs EFB resistant ‘Jefferson,’ a cultivar valued for its large nuts, is being readily adopted by growers. Output Outcome Careful, Researchers! Methods put Joe the Plumber to sleep. Partnership, collaboration is an output Partnership, an

Statement of Impact This work has saved a specialty crop industry in the United States. Hazelnuts provide an alternative enterprise to the Willamette Valley’s grass seed growers, who continue to suffer from stagnant housing markets since 2008. In a fully established orchard, Eastern Filbert Blight resistant trees return $1,940 per acre over cash costs to the grower, as compared to -$3,014 for susceptible trees, a cash flow difference of $4,954 per acre. http://www.capitalpress.com/content/js-Filbert-grass-w-art-ONV-Fixed Dramatic for academics; speaks to Joe the Plumber. Strengthen the 2nd statement by telling how many succeeded? Or how many acres had been planted. Social and Economic referred to in stagnant housing Money always talks in an impact statement. Everyone intuitively understands money. If the figures are too large, we lose track, but we can always compare two amounts of money and know which is more, better worse, so forth.

Check Your Work Review the Top Tips Handout Glossary CRIS Database Handout Critically analyze what you put in the fields in the SOARS template, keeping in mind the definitions of output, outcome, and impact. Or ask a respected colleague to review your work