To kick-start your 2010-2011 annual report, document year-end achievements

Recording year-end successes as they happen will give non-profit organizations a head start on developing a high quality annual report. Click the photo to read a case study about the annual report pictured above.

Many non-profit organizations in Canada end their fiscal year on March 31. This helps them align their planning, programming, and reporting with requirements connected to government funding. If this is the situation at your organization, you are probably experiencing one of the busiest periods in your annual cycle. As staff and volunteers rush to implement projects, you will probably see a large number of program launches, events, new publications, and other projects coming to fruition in the few weeks remaining in the fiscal year.

In my experience, most busy communicators, marketers and fundraisers at non-profit organizations will often wait until this rush is over and the new fiscal year is well under way before they start thinking about their annual report. But by reaching out to your program staff and volunteers and supporting them during these very busy last weeks of the fiscal year you can gain a significant head start on your annual report and improve the quality of this important public relations tool.

Here are a few ideas to help you make sure your program staff have all the tools they need to evaluate and record their efforts at this busy time.

• Give staff sample evaluation forms they can modify and use to make sure they are capturing feedback
• Draft and share sample questions for staff to use so they can help you gather testimonials from volunteers, donors, partners and people who have been helped by your organization
• Share photography tips and guidelines with staff and volunteers across your organization to empower them to take great photos
• Have the people you photograph and interview sign forms and give you permission to use the images and stories you gather.  
• Give sample permission forms to your team so they can obtain permission as they take the photos and do the interviews. It will save a lot of time if they don't have to follow up after the fact.
• Set up a secure place to keep your signed permission forms, along with the corresponding photos and testimonials.

Sometimes you just don't have the hours or the human resources to take photos, gather testimonials, and collect information from staff and volunteers across the organization. If you find yourself in that situation frequently, I promise you aren't alone. It might help to hire temporary freelance help. Or, if budget is an issue and you have a genuine interest in sharing and teaching, consider recruiting marketing or public relations interns, and volunteers. If you are working for a Toronto-area NPO and are interested in recruiting marketing and PR interns and volunteers, drop me a line and I would be happy to share some resources with you.

I hope these ideas, tips, and sample forms will be useful this month and throughout the coming year. If you can capture the crowning achievements at the end of your fiscal year it will help you make your next annual report shine. And if you set up your processes to capture photos and testimonials now, you won't miss another opportunity to share the organization's great work with the world.

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