Making an Impact with Your Annual Report

As we pre­pare to turn the page on anoth­er cal­en­dar year, the Bell­mont Part­ners team is hard at work craft­ing annu­al reports for sev­er­al clients. Although legal­ly required for cor­po­ra­tions, annu­al reports and impact book­lets are a pow­er­ful tool for all kinds of busi­ness­es and non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tions to show­case their wins from the past year.

Typ­i­cal­ly, these pieces revis­it an organization’s mis­sion and val­ues and can include a let­ter from lead­er­ship, an overview of the year’s high­lights, impact sto­ries, some­times a finan­cial sum­ma­ry, acknowl­edge­ments of key part­ners and future goals. Let’s dive in on how annu­al reports can be use­ful for your busi­ness and how you can cre­ate a com­pelling annu­al report this year.

Com­mu­ni­cate the val­ue of your work

First and fore­most, annu­al reports are a valu­able tool for com­mu­ni­cat­ing with stake­hold­ers. Whether it’s donors, investors, cus­tomers and clients, employ­ees, law­mak­ers or the com­mu­ni­ty at large, an impact book­let or annu­al report is a great touch­point for your key audi­ences to see your organization’s impor­tant work from the past year.

By giv­ing a high-lev­el overview of what you do, an annu­al report serves as a reminder of all the dif­fer­ent facets of your work. In their most recent annu­al report, our client The Fam­i­ly Part­ner­ship sum­ma­rizes progress toward each of the organization’s strate­gic pri­or­i­ties, includ­ing the impact of all their indi­vid­ual ser­vices. Our team designed this report and incor­po­rat­ed col­or cod­ed infor­ma­tion based on the strate­gic pri­or­i­ty the work lad­dered up to, mak­ing it easy for read­ers to see at a glance how the orga­ni­za­tion is advanc­ing the mission.

Recap wins from the past year

Annu­al reports also show­case major accom­plish­ments and mile­stones reached over the year, such as prod­uct launch­es, award wins, client and team suc­cess sto­ries, expand­ing and inno­vat­ing ser­vices, and more. By shar­ing suc­cess­es and set­ting goals for the future, these reports help build trust, main­tain trans­paren­cy and show account­abil­i­ty with key audi­ences and part­ners. Plus, they can get peo­ple excit­ed about your future plans and what’s next for the organization.

For exam­ple, we’ve helped long­time client Min­neso­ta Fire­fight­er Ini­tia­tive (MnFIRE) pro­duce an annu­al impact book­let for sev­er­al years. When the fire­fight­er health and well­ness non­prof­it was still new and grow­ing, this report was a use­ful tool to com­mu­ni­cate the state of fire­fight­er health and ral­ly leg­is­la­tors and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers to act on the car­diac, can­cer and emo­tion­al trau­ma health crises fac­ing Min­neso­ta fire­fight­ers. Now, the annu­al book­let serves as a check­point with law­mak­ers, city lead­ers, the fire ser­vice com­mu­ni­ty, donors and more about how MnFIRE’s work with the Home­town Heroes Assis­tance Pro­gram is mak­ing a real dif­fer­ence in the lives of fire­fight­ers and their families.

Engage read­ers and ral­ly donors

For non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tions, annu­al reports are an oppor­tu­ni­ty to rec­og­nize the con­tri­bu­tions of donors and show peo­ple the impact of their gift. A report can inspire and remind folks about the orga­ni­za­tion, and prompt them to keep supporting.

We rec­om­mend high­light­ing key met­rics and achieve­ments with sta­tis­tics and visu­al info­graph­ics that empha­size meet­ing your goals. Fea­tured images and pull-quotes also go a long way to cap­ture the atten­tion of read­ers and draw them into your story.

While work­ing with client Starkey Hear­ing Foun­da­tion on their Glob­al Impact Report, we shared impor­tant sta­tis­tics that high­light the extent of hear­ing health­care needs across the globe. Addi­tion­al­ly, emo­tion­al pho­tog­ra­phy and impact­ful patient suc­cess sto­ries from hear­ing health mis­sions show­case the for­ward progress the non­prof­it has made since estab­lish­ing a hear­ing health­care edu­ca­tion­al insti­tute in Zam­bia, with plans to open more else­where in the world.

Show­ing the dream in action gets donors excit­ed to be part of the jour­ney. Always include a call to action. Use this chance to get in front of your audi­ence and invite engage­ment through advo­ca­cy, donat­ing, vol­un­teer­ing, shar­ing feed­back or pro­vid­ing resources to learn more.

Expand your reach

Think through how to share your annu­al report strate­gi­cal­ly with key audi­ences through mail­ings, email, your web­site, at events and more. To max­i­mize the impact and reach, we rec­om­mend cre­at­ing a print and dig­i­tal version.

A dig­i­tal ver­sion can be inter­ac­tive with click­able links to videos or web con­tent and can help dri­ve traf­fic to your organization’s web­site, while a print book­let can be use­ful for mail­ing direct­ly to stake­hold­ers and hand­ing out at events. We often send impact book­lets to rel­e­vant media con­tacts, as well, to con­nect with them and share the lat­est updates from our clients and their lead­ers. Media often use them for ref­er­ence, and they can even spark ideas for future stories.

Client Hen­nepin EMS uti­lizes both dig­i­tal and print edi­tions of their report to max­i­mize reach. In addi­tion to mail­ing book­lets to stake­hold­ers and media, the dig­i­tal ver­sion is avail­able on the HEMS web­site to encour­age trans­paren­cy and under­score their com­mit­ment to the community.

Expand the reach of annu­al report con­tent even fur­ther by repur­pos­ing snip­pets, such as indi­vid­ual case stud­ies, graph­ics and tes­ti­mo­ni­als, for your social media, blog, email cam­paigns and oth­er owned chan­nels. An annu­al report becomes an incred­i­ble resource for pulling the best mes­sages to share with media, online, in pre­sen­ta­tions, at trade shows and more.

So, where to begin?

It can feel over­whelm­ing to pull togeth­er all the con­tent for a com­pre­hen­sive book­let like this. To avoid scram­bling at year end, try keep­ing tabs on your com­pa­ny or organization’s wins through­out the year. Cre­ate a fold­er or list for your team to track suc­cess sto­ries, tes­ti­mo­ni­als and inter­est­ing mile­stones as the year goes on. That way, when Jan­u­ary 1 (or when­ev­er the start of your fis­cal year may be) rolls around, you’ll have a jump start on the infor­ma­tion need­ed for your impact booklet.

Our team has a breadth of expe­ri­ence com­pil­ing clients’ great­est achieve­ments and show­cas­ing them with com­pelling sto­ry­telling and engag­ing visu­als. Tell us about your annu­al report or impact book­let needs to see how we can help share your organization’s story.