The Saint Louis Center Annual Report Revision
Make the Most of a Critical Communications Product
About
The Saint Louis Center
Organization Type: Faith-Based Nonprofit
Sector: Health & Disability
Employees: 36
Location: Chelsea, Michigan, United States
The Situation
The St. Louis Center is a residential center for individuals with intellectual/developmental disabilities. They do great work, and they’ve been serving the people of the Chelsea, Michigan, area for more than 50 years. Like most nonprofits, the center produces an annual report—a combination of program summaries, personal profiles, and financial snapshot. But they recently found that this report was not getting the traction they wanted. This was especially noticeable when pitching the center’s work to potential donors using the report as the backbone of the presentation.
The communications department wanted to make a change and had the start of a plan. But they wanted to make certain they had a strong argument to present to management while ensuring they were on the right track. They needed another set of eyes to perform an audit of the annual report and suggest approaches that might be more effective. We connected via Catchafire, a service that connects nonprofits to professionals for pro bono projects.
The Strategy
With 2023 coming to a close, time was of the essence for this project. The communications team wanted to prepare a new document in-house, so my role was largely advisory.
An initial review of the past 8 years of reports started to reveal the possible issues. The reports were content-rich, but important items were getting lost in the mix. Stories were not presented as effectively as they might, the document wasn’t easy to skim, and the financials (an important piece of any annual report) took on outsized importance as the easiest material to quickly digest.
After a review of a number of charity annual reports in a variety of fields, these were my suggestions:
In general terms, think of the annual report less as a magazine, and more like a website and/or resume.
Focus on reducing the overall density of material along with a slight reduction in page count.
Allow the document to breathe by increasing white space and trimming the number of elements per page. Increased white space will also assist in reducing visual strain for readers.
Design pages to allow for skimming in a modified I-path, putting important information such as titles, pull-quotes, and photos along a top line, providing some means to skim down the page (through additional photos or other visual elements), and place additional quantifiable results at the bottom of the page with emphasis.
Find more quantifiable points that connect to the organization’s mission, and incorporate them them when possible in data visualizations. Consider using an approach of “Strategy or value + concrete example + quantifiable result” to structure pages.
I presented my recommendations in a slide show with examples, then forwarded the slideshow and a number of the reports I had reviewed from other organizations to help them build their own presentation for management.
The Results
As mentioned above, the communications team at The St. Louis Center developed the 2023 Annual Report in-house. They did an amazing job incorporating best practices into the new design. The document is far easier to read, especially when skimming for highlights as often happens when meeting with potential corporate donors. You can see the final version of the report here.
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