Repurposing Your Annual Report As a Donor Magnet
Is your school looking to harness outside funding to pay for much-needed programs or to upgrade facilities? The answer to bringing in money from outside donors may just be in your school's annual report.
Two weeks ago, all DC public charter schools received their goals and academic achievement expectations template for the upcoming 2016-17 school year. This also marks the kickoff for preparation each school's 2015-16 annual report, due to the PCSB in September.
DCPCSB staff noted in a recent webinar that while its guidelines for the 2015-16 annual report mandate that a school's data adhere to the PCSB template, there is no such requirement for the narrative portion of the report. However, if you want to stay with the narrative template given by PCSB, it may be well worth the effort to take that information, gussy it up and send it out to potential donors in a format that will make them sit up and take notice of your school and its work.
After glancing at many of the charter school annual reports from 2014-2015, Innovative Results came up with 9 ways to help you to provide a more engaging read for potential donors as well as provide a "thank you" that can be provided to current donors:
1. Tell a story. Can you connect the points you want to highlight into a single theme for the year? How do you illustrate that theme with a personal story?
2. Give it some color! Don't be afraid to use color - just be consistent throughout and think about existing design elements you already use (your school's colors would be perfect, if that works).
3. Go beyond the table. Ditch the basic graphics and think data visualization. How can you portray your data in a way that makes the information you are trying to get across easy to understand at a glance? If you're dealing with lots of data, it would be helpful to include a good summary infographic before delving into more complex information.
4. Lead with images, rather than words. The best annual reports have images throughout. Rather than finding pictures to illustrate your words, start with a picture that captures the essence of the story you are trying to tell and craft your words around it.
5. Include a call to action. Don't be shy about telling your potential donor exactly what you what them to do - donate!
6. Emphasize your school's accomplishments. Focus on just two or three specifics to highlight.
7. Make it easy to communicate. Be sure to include your school's website, FB page, twitter handle, or any other social media platforms your school is on so that potential donors unfamiliar with your school can see it in action.
8. Kill the jargonitis. Will someone need a doctorate in education to understand your report? Remove the educational jargon where possible.
9. Add other components of typical annual report, such as a letter from your board chair and/or head of school.
Need assistance with your annual report? Don't hesitate to contact us to see how we may be able to help.