By Sally Pritchett
CEO
Five practical ways to get more from your charity impact reporting - making the story more meaningful, encouraging action and extending its value beyond publication.
Charities put a huge amount of work into impact reports. There is data to gather, stories to find, stakeholders to consult and approvals to work through before you even get to shaping the story, developing the key messages, writing the content and designing the final report.
Then it gets published, shared for a few weeks and, all too often, left there.
That means much of the report’s potential can go unused. A strong impact report can help people understand the difference your charity makes, build confidence in your organisation and encourage supporters, funders and partners to engage further. It can also create a valuable bank of stories, evidence and creative assets that keeps working long after publication.
We explored this topic during the B Corp Agency Alliance Charity Support Sessions, a free virtual event bringing together specialist B Corp agencies to share practical support with charities and not-for-profits. As part of the morning, our Commercial Director Felicity Allen and Creative Nikki James shared five ways charities can unlock more value from their impact reports.
1. Focus on the difference you made, not just what you did
It is easy for an impact report to become just a record of activity. We launched this, we delivered that, we supported this many people, we raised this much money.
Those facts matter because they show the scale of the work and give readers evidence of what has happened. But they do not always answer the question people really care about: what difference did it all make?
One example Felicity and Nikki explored throughout the session was an impact report we created for Autism Unlimited.
Alongside the important headline figures, the report featured stories from service users, including Max, whose experience showed how Autism Unlimited had helped him build a more independent future. The figures showed the scale of the charity’s work. Max’s story showed the difference behind them.
That is a useful balance to aim for throughout an impact report. Use the data to demonstrate reach and progress, then use people’s stories to show what those numbers mean in real life.
2. Use transparency to build trust
An impact report should absolutely celebrate what has gone well. That doesn’t mean every target needs to look like it was hit or every project needs to have gone exactly to plan. For charities asking donors, supporters, trustees and funders to place trust in the organisation, being open about where things didn’t go to plan and what you have learned from that can make the story more credible.
When we created our own impact report at Something Big, for example, we included a section focused on what we had learned during the year. We used a simple ‘We said, we did, we learnt’ approach, giving the learning the same prominence as the progress rather than hiding it in a footnote at the back.
You might acknowledge where a target was missed, explain what changed along the way or show how an experience will influence what you do next. It gives readers a more rounded picture of progress and shows how the organisation is learning and responding.
3. Make the important things easy to understand
Impact reports need to communicate a lot, from financial information and programme updates to statistics, case studies and evidence of progress. Without a clear hierarchy, it can be difficult for readers to know what matters most. Good impact report design should guide readers towards the information you really want them to take away.
Most readers will skim rather than work through every page word for word, so the design needs to help them find the important parts quickly. In practice, that could be as simple as turning a dense table into a clear chart, pulling out one meaningful statistic rather than giving twelve equal weight or giving an important story more room on the page. Every design choice should make the information easier to understand.
Accessibility should be part of this thinking from the start too, helping make the report easier for everyone to understand and navigate.
4. Give people somewhere useful to go next
If a section of your report makes someone want to know more or get involved, what do you want them to do next?
The next step might be making a donation, finding out more about a service, becoming a volunteer, starting a partnership conversation or sharing your work with somebody else. Thinking about this early makes it easier to build natural next steps into the report.
You do not need to fill every page with buttons and donation prompts. The best calls to action make sense in the context of what someone has just read. If a story will make someone want to know more, give them a clear route to continue exploring it. If a section has shown what a particular programme achieved, that may be a natural moment to explain how people can support or get involved.
The aim is to avoid creating a dead end just as you have earned somebody’s attention.
5. Extend the impact beyond launch
By the time you have created an impact report, you have often created one of the richest banks of content your charity has. There are stories, quotes, statistics, photographs, evidence of change and examples of what funding has made possible. All of that can continue to work elsewhere.
A strong case study might become a story for your website, social content or part of a presentation to a potential funder. A useful statistic might strengthen an email to supporters, a funding presentation or future fundraising communications. Quotes and photography can continue to tell the story of your work throughout the year and beyond.
Think about reuse while you are creating the report, rather than once it is finished. A case study that could become a social carousel can be written and designed with that in mind. A useful statistic can be created so it works just as well in presentations or campaign content.
Your impact report can be the place where all of that evidence comes together. It does not need to be the only place it lives.
Make more of your impact report
A strong impact report can help people understand the difference behind the numbers, build confidence in your organisation and encourage supporters, funders and partners to take the next step. And once the report is published, the stories, evidence and assets you have created can keep supporting fundraising, stakeholder engagement and communications throughout the year.
If you are working on your next charity impact report, we can support you wherever you are in the process.
Already have a report and want to know how it could work harder? Report Reviewer gives you an expert review across storytelling, structure, accessibility and design, plus practical recommendations, with prices starting from £495 + VAT
Have your content and story ready, but need help bringing it together? Report Producer gives you expert design and production support to turn it into a polished, accessible report.
If you have the evidence, progress and data but need help finding the story, shaping the structure and writing the content, Report Builder supports you through the whole process.
And if you want your report to keep creating value for your charity, Report Launcher turns it into a ready-to-go campaign, giving you the messages, creative assets and content you need to share the story across the channels and audiences that matter to your charity.