Planning your outreach

Planning and preparing outreach activities allows you to align with your organisation’s goals, allocate resources and target your approach.  

It's worth speaking to other companies to see what they’re already doing, so you don’t reinvent the wheel or target schools that already get a lot of outreach. The Tomorrow’s Engineers Code is a group of over 300 organisations committed to delivering great outreach, and is a good place to start. Get support from us, and the community, when you join. 

Once you've decided on your approach, consider your delivery. For example, have you thought about the methods available – will you need volunteers to go into schools, or is your activity teacher led? What groups are you trying to reach? Consider the ages of students, geographical regions and any particular underrepresented demographic groups you want to engage with. Have you taken steps to make sure your approach is inclusive and accommodates students’ needs?

Organisations can list engineering outreach activities on Neon free of charge. Neon allows you to set preferences to specifically target schools in your area, or with a high percentage of underrepresented groups in engineering and technology.  

Lastly, don’t forget to plan in your evaluation. Good evaluation is essential to make sure you’re gathering the right feedback and assessing the impact of your work to improve your STEM outreach delivery.

Resources to plan and improve your outreach can be found on the Tomorrow’s Engineers website. Everything is curated from across the engineering and technology community, to support collaborative and inclusive practice.