5 tips for gathering nonprofit annual report content year round

By Dionna Dash

Ah, the annual report. The task every nonprofit professional dreads. This compilation of impact numbers, beneficiary stories and insight from leadership can sneak up on you without proper planning.

But, if you gather and repurpose content throughout the year, you’ll be able to approach your annual report, and any other type of donor communications piece, with ease. To help jump start your preparation, we’ve compiled five tips for finding content all year round.

Pro Tip: When you’re ready to craft your report, simplify the process by plugging your content into Storyraise Reports and creating a clean, visually engaging piece.

1. Find your best stories

When telling the story of your organization, it can be difficult to decide who to feature, what to say and how to say it. You’ll need to identify the type of heartwarming, inspirational stories that’ll make your donors eager to help increase your nonprofit’s impact.

•  Determine where you have the biggest impact and who the main beneficiaries of your organization are. A story about someone whose life has been drastically improved by your organization’s services can be very moving.

   

•  Think about how your organization started. Oftentimes, founders have a personal connection to their nonprofit’s mission, and that makes for a story full of heart and hope.

   

•  Consider featuring other perspectives. It’s common for nonprofits to focus mainly on beneficiary stories, but it can also be refreshing and effective to amplify the voices of volunteers, staff members and other leadership who can explain the importance of your organization’s mission.

No matter which stories you identify, be sure to write some now and keep some in your back pocket for later. 

2. Compile quotes and photographs

Now that you’ve identified some possible stories, make sure you ask those featured for quotes. Quotes are a great way to add a human side to your story, offering a firsthand testimony of your impact and allowing for the addition of unique voices to your report. They can also be used as pop-outs in reports to visually break up text.

When asking for quotes, one rule to remember is that they don’t express facts, they express emotions. Don’t ask beneficiaries what support your organization gave them, ask them how that support made them feel. And ask for photos as well to add a face to the voice and allow your readers to literally see your impact.

3. Keep track of impact numbers

It seems obvious, but if you let your organization fall behind on compiling impact data, it can be a big hassle to figure out the correct numbers when you need them. In order to stay one step ahead, make sure you remain up to date on how many people your organization has helped and how much money you’ve granted.

Impact numbers are a vital part of any type of report, helping to showcase the entire impact of your donors’ generosity and amplifying the beneficiary stories included in your communications pieces. Personalized stories are important in highlighting individual impact, but numbers can reveal the full breadth of your nonprofit’s influence. In order to have a well-rounded report, including both stories and statistics is ideal.

4. Collect more video than you need at in-person events

Videos are great, not only for reports but also to engage donors on other platforms, like social media. And videos can be easy. They require no special equipment if you use your smartphone. Events create a perfect setting for capturing some quality clips. You can pull various people aside for a few minutes — donors, beneficiaries, leadership — and ask them a few quick questions about why they give or how they’ve benefitted from your organization. Remember the tips for collecting quotes, and be sure to ask “why” questions that inspire thoughtful answers expressing emotions.

Don’t forget to also capture some B roll, supplemental footage you can intercut with the main shots in your video. Clips of beneficiaries smiling and donors chatting can be edited together later with your interview clips to create a meaningful video that can be shown at future events, added to social platforms or included in emails and reports. Videos don’t always have to be perfect and polished. Oftentimes, raw videos show authenticity in an insightful, inspirational way.

5. Write and repurpose blogs for all other channels

If you’ve already done all of the work to research and write a blog — collecting quotes and photos, weaving a narrative, crafting copy — why not reuse that content as much as possible? If done right, blogs can be gifts that keep on giving: full, comprehensive stories that you can then repurpose for social posts, weekly newsletter blasts, cases for giving, email marketing and so much more.

For example, if you interviewed a beneficiary who explained how their life improved after receiving services from your organization, and their quotes are included in your blog, you can take one of their quotes and post it on social media with their photo, or use it as a pop-out quote in a report. If you have impact numbers in a blog, you can make them into a GIF that cycles through a few different statistics and include it at the bottom of an email or a weekly newsletter.