Annual reports are evolving again. They are fast becoming the next iteration of impact reports… and for good reason.
Impact reports started appearing years ago as a means to streamline long-format annual reports and help serve as a fundraising presentation tool. They can also be lighter on content and include more visual “nuggets” and infographics that help to more easily paint a picture of impact.
What is an Impact Report?
An impact report serves as a means of communicating what a not-for-profit organization does and, most importantly, the impact it is having on its community. It can also present the challenges or issues the organization is trying to improve. The impact report presents high-level statistics and tells the story of your not-for-profit organization in a succinct manner. Your 990 (IRS filing) will cover all of the legal requirements that an impact report is not required to include.
Annual Reports are transitioning into Impact Reports.
When we are designing impact reports for our clients, we prefer to divide information into short factoids or statements that can be easily absorbed while skimming the document. They create more visual interest and serve as important touchpoints.
What are the benefits of an Impact Report?
When it comes time for your development team to share your not-for-profit’s mission and connect with donors, supporters, grantors or other important constituents, they will be glad to have the impact report on hand or ready to share digitally. It can be utilized as a presentation aid as well as a valuable leave-behind during fundraising and outreach. Impact reports can utilize many different formats including standard brochures—but you might want to think out of the box and do something more engaging with the format. A creative size, fold or die cut can be enough to capture the attention of the people you need to enlist to support your organization. There is also a growing list of digital formatting options to consider.
When is the best time of year to publish an Impact Report?
Impact reports can be created and published at any time but many not-for-profit organizations choose to create one after their fiscal year concludes to report on the year’s successes. The newest data can be presented and designed to generate the most buzz, and ultimately, IMPACT.
What can be included in an Impact Report?
- Stories
- Testimonials
- Infographics
- Financial Data
- Impact Numbers
- Attained Goals
- Future Goals
- Program Summaries
- Call to Action (CTA) on How to Help
How much time does it take to prepare an Impact Report?
The amount of time it takes to create an impact report from start to finish can vary based on a few things. Statistics and brand language are essential to beginning an impact report. Language that will resonate with your constituents and donors is a critical component that will need to be crafted. How much graphic design work is required and how much printing and production time is needed are also important considerations when planning your schedule. Creating a digital impact report will take time to design and build a microsite or to flow the content from a printed report into an existing website. Web development can take time, especially since the site needs to display cleanly on desktops, laptops, and mobile devices. If you are working with an external creative team, you can expect a range of 4-12 weeks from start to finish.
Utilizing Digital Formats: Impact Report Microsite
As a self-contained website, the impact report does not need to utilize your regular website design (but can). Your navigational items can act like a table of contents so users can easily choose what they want to see and read. Your topics or content can span multiple web pages and vary in length.
A microsite, or a small website, can provide you with significant savings on printing and postage costs. You can also add dynamic content such as video and animations as seen on many current websites. Donation portals can also be linked to support your fundraising goals and the microsite can be easily linked to in your digital marketing efforts like email blasts and social media posts.
A Digital Scrolling Impact Report
When you want to tell a story in a linear, or timeline way, a scrolling annual report could be a great fit. One long scrolling web page can walk a patron through a story. As a user progresses through the scrolling page, content can change, animate, and capture their attention.
We take advantage of an effect called parallaxing to make transitioning down the long scrolling page more engaging. Parallaxing moves pieces of website content at different rates as you scroll. For example, a background may move slower than an item in the foreground as you scroll downward on the page. This technique creates a lot of depth and interest.
Since so few annual reports take advantage of parallaxing, it can present a unique digital experience for your patrons, but keeping content concise with this format is important.
Printed Impact Report with Digital Interactive Version
Nearly all printed annual report designs end up on the organization’s website as a PDF. But it doesn’t need to stop there. Flipbook-style tools for your website, including third-party services like Issuu and Flipsnack, can transform a PDF of your annual report by adding animated page turning and interactivity to help modernize it. These formats can also support links to your website. The services can work on mobile devices too, though the text will be tiny on smaller screens.
Only Design a PDF of Your Impact Report
We are seeing companies create just a PDF of their annual report with no intention of printing—saving money on printing and distribution. Much like the printed annual report, a graphic designer will utilize page layout software such as Adobe InDesign to create it. You can email the PDF (as long as the file size isn’t too big) or add it to your website where it can be easily downloaded for anyone to see. If you want to print your impact report on demand, your graphic designer can make accommodations to the file that accounts for printing margins so no information is cropped or lost when printing from your in-house copier or printer.
If you know your annual report will only be produced as a PDF, you can still take advantage of some unique capabilities. A PDF can include clickable links, an interactive table of contents that links to other pages in the document, and even embedded video and audio.
Contemplating an Impact Report for Your Organization?
At Trillion, many of our clients are not-for-profit organizations. We regularly help them tell their stories and achieve their fundraising goals in creative ways they never thought possible; this includes creating expressive impact reports that demand to be noticed and help fundraisers present their case for support to donors. If you’d like to have a conversation about your particular situation, please give us a call at 908.219.4703 or reach out with questions about impact reports and we will promptly reply to schedule a time to talk.
