Impact reporting is crucial for charities in building trust and demonstrating accountability. It’s also a valuable digital fundraising tool.

Common challenges charities face when it comes to Impact Reports is the time and resources required to create them. The reports themselves are often too long, too static, and hidden as PDFs.

We’re here to share what makes a great charity impact report, what to include, and why digital reports work better.

What is an Impact Report (and why it matters)?

An impact report is different from an annual report. Most charities are required to publish an annual report, however impact reports are not mandatory. They are, however, a great opportunity to showcase the effects of your organisation’s efforts.

Impact reporting for charities can help build donor trust, as you clearly demonstrate how funds are used and to what benefit. This can positively impact funder relationships, and show your commitment to transparency.

Where annual reports focus on accounting for spending, a charity impact report shows that it’s more than numbers. When created thoughtfully, it’s about the stories and outcomes of your work.

What to include in an Impact Report

What to include in your report depends on your goals for creating one. Whether it’s to drive internal learning and development or engage key stakeholders, there are some key elements all good reports cover. A rough impact report structure should include:

Mission and vision recap

This is your opportunity to reintroduce yourselves to readers. For some visitors this may be their first impression of you, and it acts as a refresher for long-time supporters.

Outcomes and data

This is the core statistics that show results from the last 12 months. Be sure to include context here to help readers understand what they’re looking at, provide industry benchmarks or comparison data to give substance to your stats.

Case studies

It’s so important to include beneficiary stories in your impact report. This allows readers to hear a first-hand account of the service users whose lives have been changed thanks to your work. Human impact is vital to give additional context to the numbers.

Financial overview

The financials included in this report should be a plain language version of your accounts. While fund management and fundraising practices should be included, this isn’t the place for a full financial review like your end of year report.

Future goals and challenges

When considering what to include in an impact report it can be tempting to focus only on the good but it’s important to mention any challenges faced. There are opportunities here for growth, and on reading of the challenges your supporters may offer solutions or suggestions. Check in here about whether your original goals have changed or stayed the same and how you’ll approach the next 12 months.

Tip: Structure the report for readability using logical headings and summaries throughout. Include visuals to break up text and emphasise key milestones.

How to write a compelling Impact Report

You may have to wade through data to create this report, but a compelling impact report should focus on storytelling, not jargon. Create something people will want to read and can easily understand.

Through impact report storytelling, make donors and beneficiaries the heroes. A connection to the story is what drives many people to donate so remember to centre service users in your storytelling.

A compelling impact report will also use visuals and infographics for clarity. You can use icons as bullet points, or illustrations to break up the text. Create graphics for pull quotes to emphasise testimonials from stakeholders and beneficiaries. An engaging charity impact report focuses on the headline news but is concise enough to keep readers interested so make sure you’re not burying the major talking points under lengthy paragraphs.

The benefits of digital Impact Reports vs PDF

When a potential supporter wants to learn more about you they’ll likely end up on your website. It stands to reason that your report should be front and centre online, but PDFs are often hidden away or only discovered through a direct link. Like many documents, they can also be long and inaccessible.

One of the major benefits of digital vs PDF impact report is a webpage can be optimised for better accessibility. Many organisations publish a PDF without making it compliant, for example adding alt text to images. It’s also much easier to optimise your digital impact report for mobile compatibility, versus a rigid format like PDF.

Thanks to the increasing number of cool web features, you can also make a web page really interactive and engaging. Where a flat PDF can’t accommodate such components, a digital version can include videos, animations, and clickable journeys to keep users engaged. It also means you can include both internal and external links for more context or further reading, something a printed report or downloaded PDF can’t facilitate. You can also include CTAs throughout to encourage donations.

Digital reports are easy to share with a link you can include in email, on social media and in the press. Simply put, this means more eyes on your impact. There’s also the added benefit of seeing how people engage with your digital impact report. User engagement is trackable through analytics, and insights into the views and clicks within the page will help you determine which information your supporters find more valuable.

Finally, there’s the sustainability element. As charities make great effort to reduce their carbon footprint, opting for digital vs PDF or other documents like Word means no print runs and reduced paper waste.

How to write a compelling Impact Report for your charity (and why digital beats PDF)