Annual and Impact Reports, Done Properly
Yearly publications that summarize performance, activity and impact for customers, members or funders.
Dana Whitfield
The key figures
- Audiences
- investors, customers and funders want different detail
- Substantiation
- claims about impact need evidence
- Accessibility
- reports published as PDFs need tagging
- Public companies
- have separate mandated financial reporting
Why this is worth getting right
These reports carry reputational weight, and claims inside them are held to the same standards as advertising.
Do this, not that
Do
- Agree the audience and purpose first
- Support every claim with data
- Publish an accessible HTML version alongside any PDF
- Keep last year's figures comparable
- Fact-check before design begins
Don’t
- Impact claims with no methodology
- PDF-only publication
- Numbers that change definition each year
- Design started before content is final
When to bring in help
Our advice Bring in help when reports go to funders or investors.
Where this comes from
- U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission — Fair disclosure (Regulation FD)
- W3C Web Accessibility Initiative — PDF accessibility
The figures and practices above come from the sources listed.
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Where to go next
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