Six Steps to an Aneurysm-Free Annual Report

TO BLOG OR NOT TO BLOG—THAT IS THE QUESTION

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If you think writing a 40-page government grant application is a drag, imagine being the person who has to evaluate a dozen of them. That's the unhappy fate of proposal reviewers—the folks who hold your program's fate in their hands. Here's how to keep your reviewers awake, interested, and on your side. [Read more]


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Dorothy Parker's famous witticism is only funny if it hasn't become a way of life at your organization. Here are some tips for keeping your communications projects on track—and on time. [Read more]

 

Annual reports are a great way to showcase your organization’s work and position your brand, but they can also be a real headache. These recommendations arise from observations made during many years of writing annual reports, large and small, for a wide variety of clients.

  1. Avoid Kitchen Sink Syndrome: It’s tempting to include every achievement, event, factoid, and accolade in your annual report. Instead, save the smaller stuff for e-newsletters and other formats. Focus on major milestones, key data, and core achievements. In a time of information overload, this will ensure that your report gets read and that your message gets across.
  2. Attain Balance: Once you’ve determined what content areas to focus on, you’ll need to make sure the writing style strikes the right balance. Truly, the devil is in the details: too many turn readers off; too few flush meaning down the drain. Skilled writing balances crispness with depth, squeezing the most meaning from the fewest words. It provides a mix of styles to reach “skimmers” (who scan documents to glean the highlights) and “readers” (who enjoy narrative and detailed analysis). A qualified professional can bring discipline and fresh perspective to the editorial process, ensuring brevity without succumbing to sound bites.
  3. Honor Thy Audience: Think about the length, look, style, and format of your report from your audience’s perspective. How much, realistically, will your primary constituency want to read? Will they want lots of statistics and research or personal stories of how your programs effect change? What formats will suit them—PDF, print, traditional “book” style, or something more offbeat? Your audience’s needs and expectations should drive many of your decisions regarding your report’s content, format, and design.
  4. Don’t Dis Your Donors: Donor acknowledgment lists—especially lengthy ones—are notoriously difficult to organize into consistently styled, error-free formats. Misspelled names, omissions, and other lapses will alienate donors and harm your organization’s professional image. Use an experienced editor for this important task, and allow ample time for proofreading, follow-up on editorial queries, fact checking, and multiple layers of review.
  5. Think Like a Documentarian—and an Archivist: When annual report time rolls around, many organizations find themselves lacking in visual material that reflects their work. You can avoid this problem by integrating a “shutterbug” mentality into your routine operations, consistently taking (or hiring someone to take) high-quality pictures of your events, activities, constituency, and community all year long. Archive the best of these images to avoid last-minute scrambles for visual content. And while you’re thinking like an archivist, be sure to squirrel away annual reports from other agencies that include elements you admire. Bringing these models to the table when the time comes to conceptualize your report will enrich the process immeasurably.
  6. Don’t “Misunderestimate” What It Takes to Make a Great Annual Report: If there’s anything I’m grateful to George W. Bush for, it’s the word “misunderestimate.” People often misunderestimate the number of decisions, activities, and review phases required to produce an annual report. Symptoms of such miscalculations include: publication delays, suboptimal products, blurred vision, and severe headaches. Avoid these hazards by creating a realistic work plan that includes all activities required to bring your report to fruition, including concept development, research, writing, photo collection, review processes, gathering of financial data, preparing of donor lists, copyediting and proofreading, design, printing, etc. Clarity about these processes, and their attendant deadlines, will help you create a first-rate report that goes out on time, without painful side effects.

As an ancient Buddhist text wisely notes, “Behind each jewel are three thousand sweating horses.” This could not be truer of annual reports—especially if you want yours to be a gem. The good news is that instead of sweating horses, a good consultant will usually suffice.