This document provides guidance on creating an effective nonprofit annual report. It discusses objectives for annual reports such as demonstrating accomplishments and recognizing donors. Key sections include identifying target audiences, gathering content throughout the year, recommended length and formatting, and distributing the report via print and digital channels. The document emphasizes using stories, photos, and a call to action to engage readers.

1. Eric Jacobson
Vice President, Media Development
Ascend Integrated Media
How to Write an Effective
Nonprofit Annual Report

2. Agenda
Reasons for Creating an Annual Report
• Objectives………………………………………………………………………………..5
• Desired Outcomes……………………………………………………………………6
Creating the Ideal Report for Your Target Audience(s)
• Identifying Your Audience(s)……………………………………………………8
Preparing to Create Your Annual Report
• Process……………………………………………………………………………………9
• Preparing Throughout the Year………………………………………………9
• Timeline………………………………………………………………………………..11
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3. Preparing to Create Your Annual Report
• Financial Information…………………………………………………………12
• Accomplishments………………………………………………………………14
• Photos……………………………………………………………………………….14
• Whom to Involve……………………………………………………………….15
Writing and Designing Your Annual Report
• Theme………………………………………………………………………………16
• Sections and Outline…………………………………………………………18
• Ideal Length………………………………………………………………………19
• Writing Style……………………………………………………………………..20
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Agenda

4. Writing and Designing Your Annual Report
• Photos and Photo Captions…………………………………………………….20
• Must Have Content…………………………………………………………………22
• Engaging Elements………………………………………………………………….24
• What Not to Do………………………………………………………………………26
• Addressing Bad News……………………………………………………………..27
• Donor Lists……………………………………………………………………………..28
• Executive Letter………………………………………………………………………30
Distributing Your Annual Report
• Timing…………………………………………………………………………………….31
• Print……………………………………………………………………………………….31
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Agenda

5. Distributing Your Annual Report
• Electronic………………………………………………………………………………32
• Social Media………………………………………………………………………….33
• Other Uses…………………………………………………………………………….33
Next Steps
• Checklist……………………………………………………………………………….34
• Resources……………………………………………………………………………..36
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Agenda

6. Objectives
• Demonstrate accomplishments (results and how you did it)
• Recognize important people (volunteers, donors, major funders,
partners)
• Create a historical progress record
• Provide an account of organization’s work for the past year
• Fulfill a management best practice (expected of your nonprofit to do an
annual report)
Reasons for Creating an Annual Report
5

7. Desired Outcomes
• One-year shelf life
• ROI (new donations, retain donors, grow partnerships)
• Readership (but, likely not cover to cover)
• Engagement (sharing your mission, story and successes)
6
Reasons for Creating an Annual Report

8. People don’t just share information, they tell stories.
Highlight your mission and results in
stories that people want to tell and share.
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Reasons for Creating an Annual Report

9. Identifying Your Audience(s)
• Donors
• Volunteers
• Community leaders
• Future board members
• Supporters (in-kind)
• Elected officials
• Members
• Potential partners, grant funding entities
• New individuals
Creating the Ideal Report for your Target Audience(s)
8

10. Process
• Internal and/or external resources
Preparing Throughout the Year
• Keep donor list up-to-date (and accurate)
• Take lots of photos (volunteers, donors, events, workplace activities)
• Save organization’s results reports
• Keep running list of what to include in your annual report
• Maintain annual report pro/con feedback list (your past reports and other
reports you’ve seen)
Preparing to Create Your Annual Report
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11. All year long, gather and catalog submitted photos
(and ask for written permission to use)
10
Preparing to Create Your Annual Report

12. Timeline
• Allow 3 to 4 months
• Create Outline/Sections
• Gather and organize content
• Interview management team
• Design (internally, or externally via a freelancer)
• Review drafts (proofing)
• Print
• Distribute
11
Preparing to Create Your Annual Report

13. Financial Information
• Keep it simple; plain English (spell out abbreviations)
• Show the 20,000-foot view, trends and timelines
• Identify key messages (can also be in the Executive Letter; couple of
paragraphs)
• Show where revenue comes from and how money is spent (fundraising and
administrative costs)
• Use pie charts and bar charts
• Use numbers and percentages
• Tie financials to your mission (demonstrate money well spent)
• Devote no more than 20% of report to financials
• Explain where full financials can be read/accessed (IRS Form 990)
• www.guidestar.org
• Your website
12
Preparing to Create Your Annual Report

14. Use five or less elements in your pie charts
for best reader comprehension
13
Preparing to Create Your Annual Report

15. Accomplishments
• Describe achievements (results) – not activities
• Show how activities helped achieve your mission (money well spent;
what difference activities made)
• Use impressive numbers (i.e. quantity # of meals served, # of
rides provided, # of volunteer hours)
Photos
• Include lots of photos
• Use positive, uplifting photos
• Emphasize real people (not stock photography)
14
Preparing to Create Your Annual Report

16. Whom to Involve
• Executive Director
• Staff
• Board members (marketing/communications committee)
• Financial person
• “Outside” individual
• Proofreader
• Freelancer (writer, graphic designer)
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Preparing to Create Your Annual Report

17. Theme
•Theme for the year:
• Transformation
• Day in the life
• Milestones
• Critical issues
• Stories about individuals who you helped
• Progress toward the future
• New undertakings
• Milestone anniversary
Writing and Designing Your Annual Report
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18. Tell 3 key messages
(“take home” “elevator message”
to convey a specific impression
of major accomplishments)
17
Writing and Designing Your Annual Report

19. Sections and Outline
• Table of Contents
• Executive Director letter (include mission: what you do and why)
• Accomplishments/Achievements (past year only)
• Financials
• Donor list
• Board of Directors list
• Call to action
• Stories (profiles) to highlight successes
• Photos
18
Writing and Designing Your Annual Report

20. Ideal Length
• No more than 16 to 20 pages
• No less than 2 to 4 pages
• Examine sampling of annual reports to gauge optimum length
19
Writing and Designing Your Annual Report

21. Writing Style
• Informal, yet professional
• 8th
grade reading level
• Inviting
• “Scope numbers,” connect all the dots
Photos and Photo Captions
• Second most read/looked at in an annual report
• Serve as “visual quotes”
• Captions tell your mission, your story, your results (show real people)
• Connect photos to your accomplishments
20
Writing and Designing Your Annual Report

22. In your photo captions, explain what the people
are doing and how that ties to your past year’s
accomplishments/achievements
21
Writing and Designing Your Annual Report

23. Must Have Content
• Accomplishments (not activities)
• Stories
• Lots of “Thanks”
• Call to action
22
Writing and Designing Your Annual Report

24. Include the following types of call to action items:
• Make monetary donations (insert donation envelope)
• Make non-monetary donations (list your organization’s needs)
• Volunteer
• Share stories (including via Social Media)
• Learn about planned giving and charitable gift annuities opportunities
• Organize workplace activities
• Submit photos and videos
23
Writing and Designing Your Annual Report
How to:

25. Engaging Elements
• Pull out quotes
• Boxed Text
• Shaded color backgrounds
• QR Codes to videos
• Volunteer testimonials
• Infographics (creative approach)
24
Writing and Designing Your Annual Report

26. Sample Infographic
25
Writing and Designing Your Annual Report

27. What Not to Do
• Activities (fundraising) versus accomplishments (results)
• Too fancy (keep professional and reflect your organization)
• But…donors support winners
• Hard to read (text heavy, small text size, poorly designed)
• Stock photos
• Too long
• Photos without captions
• No storytelling
• No call to action
• Misspelled donor names
• Leaving the financials to interpretation
• Boring, lengthy Executive Director letter
26
Writing and Designing Your Annual Report

28. Addressing Bad News
• Address directly and honestly – show a silver lining if possible
• Address as challenges or transitions
• Include in Executive Director letter
27
Writing and Designing Your Annual Report

29. Donor Lists
• Indicate cut-off timing of list
• Spell donors’ names correctly (and triple check them)
• Show donors by contribution level, then alphabetically
(use a minimum dollar level and note that)
• Include defined list in the printed report and full list online
(and offer to mail full list to requesters)
• Devote no more than 10% to 20% of your report to the donor list
28
Writing and Designing Your Annual Report

30. For multi-year grants, list them in each year
in the annual report during the multiple
years covered by the grant
29
Writing and Designing Your Annual Report

31. Executive Letter
• Keep it short (4 to 5 paragraphs)
• Highlight 3 key messages
• Summarize the past year – results (not how you raised money)
• Include a photo of the Executive Director
• Use a ghost writer if needed
• Make it interesting and insightful…personal and friendly
• Include the mission
• Possibly address the present and future
30
Writing and Designing Your Annual Report

32. Timing
• Online (year-long)
• Fall/Winter (year-end donations)
• Six months before your fiscal year end
• Major event
Print
• Most common method (consider quantity, self-mailing, self-cover)
• Connect via online (PDF, QR codes to video, ebook/flipbook)
Distributing Your Annual Report
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33. Electronic
Prepare for Adobe Acrobat PDF, ebook/flipbook, iPad, Smartphone
• Link to audio
• Link to video (keep videos between 1 and 3 minutes in length)
Examples:
• The Duke Endowment (online)
• The Salvation Army (abbreviated version, videos)
• School on Wheels 2010 Annual Report (YouTube video)
32
Distributing Your Annual Report

34. Social Media
• Twitter
• Facebook
• YouTube
• Any place to foster sharing and comments
• Ask questions
• YouTube (comments and sharing)
33
Distributing Your Annual Report
Other Uses
• Events

35. • Who will help prepare the report?
• Do we need to engage an external freelancer (writing and/or design)?
• Who will write the Executive Director letter?
• Are we gathering photos all year long?
• Is our donor list accurate and up-to-date?
• What will be our annual report’s theme?
• Will we distribute in print and/or online?
• What are our best stories to tell?
Next Steps
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36. • Will we create a video?
• When will we release our annual report?
• What are our three major accomplishments/achievements for the past year?
• Who will double and triple check our reported financials and donor
list for accuracy?
• Where will we tell our key messages in different ways?
(Executive Director letter, photo captions, etc.)
• What calls to action will we include?
35
Next Steps

37. Resources
Services/Tools:
• eBooks/Flipbooks: Zmags, Ascend Integrated Media
• Publishing online platforms/tools: Issuu, Prezi
Voluntary standards:
• Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Alliance, March 2003
• www.give.org
• www.bbb.org/us/Charity-Evaluation/
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Next Steps

38. • Vice President, Media Development, Ascend Integrated Media
• More than 30 years of experience in communications, publishing, new
product development, and mergers and acquisitions.
• Direct: (913) 344-1436
• eMail: ejacobson@ascendintegratedmedia.com
• www.ascendintegratedmedia.com
Contact Information
37
Eric Jacobson