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May 20, 2008

Don't Spend a Lot of Money on Annual Reports

Many organizations spend significant time and money creating glossy annual reports with the hope that these reports will spur interest.

But if groups really want to spread the word, they should put as little effort as possible into their annual reports, the marketing expert Seth Godin says.

Instead, he says, “I’d create a storytelling document that is aimed at the vernacular of the people you need to read it. Turn it into a PDF and a piece that’s easy to share. Test it and make it spread. No need to conflate the two.”

For more ideas from Mr. Godin, read the transcript of his live discussion today with Chronicle readers.

Tuesday May 20, 2008 | Permalink

Comments

1. While I think the intent of Seth Godin’s comment is right on, telling nonprofits to put as little effort as possible into their annual reports is a big mistake. Nonprofits are not under the same rules about what goes in an annual report as publicly traded companies. They have complete discretion over what goes in them. So instead of the usual pablum, nonprofits should be using their annual reports as storytelling documents. They shouldn’t be creating two separate documents (one lame, one great) as Godin implies.

   — Kivi - Nonprofit Marketing Guide.com    May 20, 06:50 PM    #

2. I definitely disagree with Seth on this. I think donors at all levels are becoming more engaged and more critical of non-profits. it is essential to create an annual report that can capture the human side of your organization, but also shows the effectiveness and financial stability. Those are important factors, and a fuzzy piece that glosses over the organizational strengths of an organization are not going to garner the larger dollars of sophisticated donors.

   — Mike    May 21, 03:03 PM    #

3. Although I think that it shouldn’t be necessarily about putting “as little effort” into your annual reports (I think you should put in considerable effort into your annual report, I just don’t think it needs to be text heavy), overall I significantly agree with what Seth is saying. Our organization recently created a simple fold out, in which the actual report is a single 22” x 11” piece of heavy recycled paper which is folded in quarters. It was designed as a self mailer and is now our primary piece of collateral. In trying to decide whether to keep the donor list or not, we polled some long time board and community members/donors. While an abbreviated report seemed pretty radical to everyone, they were all in favor once we agreed to take a hybrid approach – rather than eliminate the donor list, we just put it online on our web site. Instantly after the release of the annual reports in the mailstream, we had a flood of responses from current donors, staff, community members and donors who hadn’t connected with us in years complimenting us and asking for our updated information. It’s truly been a great tool. And the best thing about it, is that it becomes a nice talking piece/brochure for the remainder of the year until our next piece comes out. I’m not sure if this concept will work for every nonprofit, but I think testing is the only way to know for sure. On a side note, after much international research on donors, Penelope Burk of Cygnaus Applied Research also speaks of the concept that Seth is communicating.

   — Ken D. Grunke    May 22, 03:55 PM    #

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