Nonprofit Annual ReportsInspiration to communicate your mission

Joleen Ong, Marketing & Publications Director, NTEN

Twitter: @joleendearest & @NTENorg

Annual Reports - Purpose

- Not legally required, but a valuable communications tool

- Convey progress & impact of activities

- Opportunity to recognize donors and stakeholders (not required in the Form 990)

Annual Reports in the Digital Age

• Information overload!

• Think about the reader experience, include visuals

• A “big thud” doesn’t immediately convey high impact

• What is the key info you want to convey?

Reimagining the Annual Report

• Interactive Websites

• Email Roundups

• Infographics

• Reader Friendly Publications

Promote across multiple channels!

INTERACTIVE WEBSITES

EMAIL ROUNDUPS

INFOGRAPHICS

READER FRIENDLY PUBLICATIONS

NEXT STEPS: SIX TIPS

Tip 1: Plan ahead with your team, collect information early

Tip 2: Think of your organization’s story

Tip 3: Acknowledge Donors

Tip 4: Highlight the voices of the people you serve

Tip 5: Balance text with visuals/captions

Engage your community for photos!

Tip 6: Explain in plain English

Restricted vs. Unrestricted Funding

Additional Resources:

• Nonprofit Annual Reports, Wikispaces: http://nonprofitannualreports.wikispaces.com/

• NTEN: Change, Dec. 2013: Rethinking the Traditional Annual Report with Videos and Infographics: http://bit.ly/Dec2013NTENChangeAnnualReport

• NTEN blog: Smart strategies for using PDFs on your site: http://bit.ly/NTENPDFstrategies

Link to presentation: http://bitly.com/ARpdxt4g

Stay Connected!

• Twitter: @joleendearest & @NTENorg

• Email: joleen@nten.org

Subscribe:

• NTEN: Change quarterly journal for nonprofit leaders –www.nten.org/ntenchange

• NTEN Connect Newsletter: www.nten.org