How to Track Programme Attendance in a Charity

Attendance tracking is the process of recording who attends your charity's sessions, activities, and programmes. It sounds simple, but it underpins almost everything else your charity needs to do — from measuring outcomes and fulfilling safeguarding duties to reporting to funders and demonstrating reach.

TL;DR: UK charities that track attendance systematically can link participation data to outcomes, satisfy funder reporting requirements, and meet safeguarding obligations. Paper registers remain widespread among small charities, but they create data silos that make reporting time-consuming and error-prone. Digital attendance tracking integrated with case management software significantly reduces reporting time and enables real-time visibility of programme engagement. Plinth connects attendance to outcomes automatically.

Why Does Attendance Tracking Matter for Charities?

Attendance tracking matters because it is the foundation of four critical functions: outcome measurement, safeguarding, funder reporting, and resource planning. Without reliable attendance data, none of these functions work properly.

Outcome measurement. You cannot measure distance travelled if you do not know who attended and how often. A young person who attended 20 out of 24 sessions has a fundamentally different programme experience from one who attended 3. Attendance frequency is one of the strongest predictors of programme outcomes — research from the Education Endowment Foundation shows a consistent correlation between session dosage and impact across youth and education programmes.

Safeguarding. For charities working with children, young people, or vulnerable adults, knowing who is in the building at any given time is a legal and ethical requirement. If a fire alarm goes off, you need an accurate register. If a safeguarding concern arises, you need to know when a person was last seen and by whom. The Charity Commission's safeguarding guidance (CC8 and related) expects charities to maintain adequate records of who accesses their services.

Funder reporting. Most grant funders require output data that includes participant numbers and attendance figures. The National Lottery Community Fund, which distributes £600 million or more annually and is one of the largest grant funders of community activity in the UK, requires projects to report on unique participants, total attendances, and programme completion rates. Without systematic tracking, compiling this data becomes a quarterly ordeal.

Resource planning. Attendance patterns reveal which sessions are well-attended and which are not, which days work best, and where demand is growing or declining. This data supports evidence-based decisions about where to invest limited resources.

Many charities find that once they start tracking attendance properly, two things happen: they discover their actual reach is different from what they assumed, and their funder reports become dramatically easier to produce.

What Are the Main Methods for Tracking Attendance?

There are three primary methods: paper registers, spreadsheets, and purpose-built software. Each has clear trade-offs in terms of cost, effort, accuracy, and reporting capability.

Definition: Programme Attendance Tracking

Programme attendance tracking is the systematic recording of which individuals attend which sessions, activities, or events within a charity's programmes. It captures the participant's identity, the date and time of attendance, the specific session or activity attended, and optionally additional data such as lateness, early departure, or participation level. When integrated with case management or outcome measurement systems, attendance data becomes the quantitative backbone of impact reporting.

Paper registers

Paper registers remain the most common method for small charities. They require no technology, no training, and no budget. A printed sheet with names down the side and dates across the top does the basic job.

The limitations emerge when you try to do anything with the data. Totalling attendances across a 12-week programme means counting ticks manually. Reporting unique participants across three programmes means cross-referencing multiple sheets. Identifying attendance patterns (who is dropping off, which sessions are underattended) requires significant manual effort. The Charity Digital Skills Report 2025 found that 68% of small charities remain in the early stages of digital adoption, which partly explains the persistence of paper-based methods.

Spreadsheets

Spreadsheets are the next step up — a paper register in digital form. They allow formulas for totalling, pivot tables for analysis, and copying for backup. Many charities use Google Sheets for the advantage of shared access.

The problems with spreadsheets are well-documented across the sector. Version control is unreliable when multiple staff edit the same file. Data validation is limited — a misspelled name creates a duplicate participant. Linking attendance data to outcomes, demographics, or case records requires complex cross-referencing that breaks easily. For a detailed comparison, see our guide to case management vs spreadsheets.

Purpose-built software

Charity-specific platforms like Plinth integrate attendance tracking with participant records, case management, and outcome measurement. When a participant checks in to a session, their attendance is automatically recorded against their profile, linked to the relevant programme, and available for reporting without any additional data entry.

The Charity Finance Group's late 2024 survey found that 80% of charities are exploring cost-cutting measures, with over a third having made staff redundant in the preceding year. In this financial climate, the time saved on manual data aggregation often justifies the cost of software within the first reporting cycle.

How Do You Link Attendance to Outcomes?

You link attendance to outcomes by recording both in the same system against the same participant record, then analysing the relationship between attendance patterns and outcome achievement. This is where the real value of systematic attendance tracking emerges.

The core principle is dosage analysis: understanding whether participants who attended more sessions achieved better outcomes. For example:

• In an employability programme, did young people who attended 80%+ of sessions have higher job start rates than those who attended less than 50%?
• In a wellbeing programme, is there a correlation between number of sessions attended and improvement in WEMWBS scores?
• In an advice service, do clients who attended follow-up appointments have better case resolution rates?

This analysis requires attendance data and outcome data to be stored against the same participant record — something that is straightforward in an integrated platform like Plinth but extremely difficult when attendance lives in a paper register and outcomes live in a separate spreadsheet.

Dosage analysis also helps you design better programmes. If outcomes plateau after 12 sessions, there is no point running 20. If outcomes only materialise for participants who attend at least 8 out of 10 sessions, you know that engagement and retention strategies are as important as session content.

The voluntary sector employs 978,000 people (NCVO Almanac 2024), approximately 3% of the UK workforce. With many charities reporting expenditure exceeding income, being able to demonstrate the relationship between attendance and outcomes helps justify continued investment in programmes that work and redesign or discontinue those that do not.

How Should You Report Attendance Data to Funders?

Report attendance data in the format your funder requires, typically including unique participants, total attendances, completion rates, and demographic breakdowns. Present attendance alongside outcomes to tell a complete story about programme delivery.

Most funders want to see four core attendance metrics:

1. Unique participants — the number of distinct individuals who attended at least one session.
2. Total attendances — the aggregate number of session attendances across all participants (one person attending 10 sessions = 10 attendances).
3. Completion rate — the percentage of enrolled participants who completed the full programme (or attended a minimum threshold of sessions).
4. Demographic breakdown — attendance figures broken down by age, gender, ethnicity, disability, and postcode, as relevant to the funder's priorities and your programme's target group.

The National Lottery Community Fund, for instance, requires grantees to report on "people reached" (unique participants) and "sessions delivered" (total activities) as standard output measures. Government-funded programmes such as the Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme have specific attendance reporting requirements, including daily headcounts and individual child-level data.

Plinth's Monitoring & Reporting feature generates these metrics automatically from your attendance records, with filters for programme, date range, and demographic categories. This eliminates the manual counting and cross-referencing that makes funder reporting so time-consuming.

What Are the GDPR Considerations for Attendance Tracking?

Attendance records contain personal data and must comply with UK GDPR. The key requirements are having a lawful basis for processing, collecting only necessary data, storing it securely, retaining it for no longer than needed, and respecting individuals' data rights.

Lawful basis. For most charity programmes, the lawful basis for recording attendance is legitimate interests — you need attendance data to deliver and evaluate your services. For programmes serving children, you may also rely on the performance of a contract with a parent or carer, or a legal obligation (such as safeguarding). Consent is generally not the most appropriate lawful basis for attendance tracking, as it implies that participation is optional while you are simultaneously requiring it for service delivery.

Data minimisation. Collect only the attendance data you actually need. A session register needs name, date, and session attended. It does not need home address, medical conditions, or other sensitive information — those belong in the participant's case record, accessible only to authorised staff.

Storage and access. Paper registers left on reception desks or in unlocked cabinets are a data protection risk. Digital records should be stored in systems with role-based access controls, so that session volunteers can mark attendance but cannot access full case records. With recruitment challenges widespread across the sector, reliance on temporary staff and volunteers makes access controls particularly important.

Retention. Define a retention schedule for attendance data and stick to it. Funders may require you to retain data for a specified period after the grant ends (commonly 6-7 years for lottery-funded projects). After that period, data should be securely deleted or anonymised.

Data subject rights. Participants (or their parents/carers for children) have the right to request access to their attendance records, request corrections, and in some circumstances request deletion. Your attendance tracking system needs to support these requests.

Plinth provides role-based access controls, audit trails, and data retention management that support GDPR compliance as standard.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a good attendance rate for charity programmes?

There is no universal benchmark, and what constitutes a good completion rate varies significantly by programme type. For voluntary programmes, sector experience suggests that retaining a majority of participants through to completion is a positive indicator. Mandatory or referred programmes tend to have higher attendance rates. The key is to set a realistic target based on your context, measure against it, and understand the reasons for non-attendance rather than simply chasing a number.

How do we track attendance for outreach or street-based work?

Outreach work presents unique tracking challenges because sessions are informal and participants may not give their names. Options include anonymous headcounts (useful for demonstrating reach but not for individual outcome tracking), first-name-only registers (a compromise for initial engagement), and progressive disclosure (collecting more identifying information as trust builds over multiple contacts). Be transparent with funders about the limitations of outreach data.

Should we track attendance for one-off events differently from ongoing programmes?

Yes. For one-off events (awareness sessions, community days, open events), a simple headcount or sign-in sheet is usually sufficient. For ongoing programmes where you need to measure outcomes, you need individual-level tracking that links each person's attendance across the full programme. The two serve different purposes and should be reported separately.

How do we handle participants who attend multiple programmes?

This is where integrated software adds the most value. A single participant record linked across multiple programmes means you can see that Sarah attended your employability programme on Mondays and your wellbeing group on Wednesdays without creating duplicate records. In a spreadsheet-based system, this requires manual cross-referencing that becomes increasingly unreliable as participant numbers grow.

Can we use QR codes or apps for self-check-in?

Yes, and many charities are adopting digital check-in methods. QR code scanning, tablet-based sign-in screens, and mobile app check-ins reduce staff burden and improve accuracy. However, consider digital exclusion — some participants may not have smartphones or may be uncomfortable with technology. Always offer an alternative method. Plinth's Bookings feature supports both digital and manual attendance recording.

Recommended Next Pages

• Programme Management Software for Charities — compare platforms for managing multiple programmes.
• What Is Outcome Measurement? — foundational concepts for linking attendance to impact.
• Community Centre Management Software — tools for managing venues, sessions, and attendance in community settings.
• HAF Attendance Tracking — specific guidance for Holiday Activities and Food programme attendance requirements.

Last updated: February 2026

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