Impact report with little resources – mission (is) possible!
An Impact Report shows investors and clients what your company has achieved. Make creating a report an annual habit.
Good job, people! We’ve made it this far: our final part of Easy Impact Communication. This is the last part of the series, but I still have one surprise waiting for you, so stay tuned.
Today we’ll be talking about Impact Reports.
And before you let out a heavy sigh proclaiming: “I don’t have time for this anymore!”, I’ll drop in the good news: if you have been implementing the steps we have presented in earlier parts of the series, you probably already have all you need. You just need to put it all together.
Why do I need an Impact Report?
You have two main reasons to put together an impact report: You can use it to show your existing investors and partners that you have lived up to your promises. And it will convince future funders, partners and clients that you have a viable business idea that really works.
What should an Impact Report include?
Remember: we are going for quality, not quantity. Your impact report doesn’t need to be a 60-page report printed on heavy, fancy paper. It can be something as simple as a 4-page pdf document you share with your investors and partners via email or publish on your website.
Think about creating at least four pages:
- A personal letter from the founder, CEO or other person at the top of the company. Share your personal feelings, accomplishments and milestones.
- A story of progress. It can be a customer interview or a story of a bigger change in an organisation, village or country. Use the storytelling techniques we discussed earlier to make your story moving.
- Figures that demonstrate the scale of your progress: how many people’s lives have you touched, what has changed since your company has come into the market?
- Present your partners and funders and highlight the impact they have had on your journey.
How do you create an Impact Report with limited resources?
So four pages doesn’t sound feasible? Here are some more tips to get you going quickly:
A good way to present your key figures is an infographic. One page can summarize your best achievements. Use material you have gathered through customer feedback forms. You can also send a survey to your partners and gather information and testimonials from them for your report.
As far as the stories go, you can repurpose the best ones you’ve shared on social media during the year.
Share the work with your team. As a company owner or founder, you can write your letter, and other team members can take care of one page each. This way the work is not too overbearing for anyone of you.
If you’re still afraid that the report will end up swallowing all your resources, set yourself a time limit: maximum of 2 days of your time, for example.
If you need help with visuals but are afraid of the cost of hiring a graphic designer, ask one to create a report template you can use and tweak yourself next year. You still have to pay them, but the asset will be yours for years to come.
In which form should I publish the report?
When deciding on the format, think about the way you want to distribute the report. Pdf is a good option to be sent out by email as well as to be published on your website.
But you can also record a video or an audio file. It can even be an interactive website with all of these different elements. Use a format that is familiar and that you and your team like using, to make it easier for you all.
It doesn’t sound so complicated after all, does it?
Now that we are at the end of the series, I would love to hear from you. Which part did you find the most interesting? What tool or tip are you putting into action right away? Be sure to send me all your questions – I’m going to share the answers with all the participants in a FAQ document.
