| Why do I keep getting asked for different versions of my impact report, after I’ve already created a great one? | Because people are interested in what you have to say! All impact measurement information needs to be translated, re-packaged, and formatted for different audiences. The more people you speak to, the more different types of impact reports your nonprofit will create. |
If you’ve ever done impact reporting for a nonprofit, this probably sounds familiar:
An executive director has just spent a month working with her communications team to create the organization’s first annual impact report. It’s a stunning, interactive story, published on the organization’s website.
Five minutes after the report launches, the director of development remembers that she has a lunch meeting with a major donor that day. She’d love to share the report, but it’s too long and has too many visual elements to print nicely.
“Do we have a one-page version of this?” she asks.
It’s the right call, to re-package the key information for a different audience. So the comms team makes a short version, sacrificing the visual storytelling to make sure key information can reach an important supporter.
The next morning, it’s the communications manager who realizes they want the report in yet another format. They have a meeting with a new partner, and the impact measures would be the perfect tool for discussing shared goals. But this is just an informal chat; it doesn’t feel like the right time to present a lengthy report or ask the partner to do homework.
“I think I need talking points, key messages that I can weave into the conversation organically,” realizes the manager.
Just then, Slack knock-knock-knocks with a request from the social media intern for help. He’s only been on the job for two days and he can’t figure out how to condense all that impact report content into a Bluesky post.
This game of impact reporting whack-a-mole can go on forever: whatever type of report you create, it never seems to be the report you need. Make a beautiful print report and you need a short summary you can paste into an email. Polish up a short summary and you need a video with emotional appeal. Make a video and you need talking points for a media interview. Make talking points and you need a story that provides context to draw in a live audience. Spin a story for the general public, and an expert will ask you to provide more detail.
This game never ends.
The first thing you need to know is that impact reporting whack-a-mole is real. It’s common.
The second thing you need to know is this: It’s a good thing.
When you feel pressure to package your message into different formats, it’s because people are paying attention. You haven’t done it wrong — in fact, it’s usually a sign that you’re building support.
That impact report that the ED and her team worked so hard to create wasn’t the end of a process — it was a beginning.
Impact measurement is when you decide what to measure, how you’re going to measure it, and then you go about implementing that plan. Impact measures are generally collected once, like when you take photos, gather testimonials, or compile hard data from your program staff.
The next phase is impact reporting. This is when you package those measurements — the data, stories, and analysis — for people who need to know about your work. Impact reporting could mean creating a big, beautiful web report; it can just as easily mean drafting key messages for your next board meeting or grant proposal.
When you are building support and creating change, you’ll find yourself reporting over and over and over again.
Impact reporting is a lot like cooking. You can take tomatoes and Impossible Ground and onions and pepper and make a hearty spaghetti sauce; or you can toss in some different seasonings and turn those exact same ingredients into a tasty chilli.
Once you’ve collected your impact information, you basically have a pile of ingredients to play with. You can mix and match the information for all kinds of audiences. The same resources can be packaged for online or in-person communications, formal or informal interactions, and expert or mass audiences.
The more you do impact reporting, the more familiar you become with the mix of ingredients that best tell your story.
When people think “impact measurement”, numbers and statistics are often the first thing that comes to mind. Each number is part of a bigger story about your focus and impact. The numbers help you focus, but they never tell the whole story.
When it comes to reporting, what you’ve measured is often more important than the measurement itself. You don’t have to use all those numbers in your reports. In fact, your impact report is often more powerful when you translate numbers into narrative and omit them completely.
Your facts and stats need to be supported by proof. Usually, the most compelling support comes from images, like photos and video.
Some visual content must be captured in the moment; special events and project activities only happen once, for example. Other content might be scripted or planned out. Either way, the more high-quality imagery you have in your library, the more effectively you’ll be able to show your impact in unique and compelling ways.
Survey and poll results look like numbers, but they act like social proof. That makes them equal parts scientific and emotional.
Surveys and polls can show your audience how others view your work, the importance of your cause, and the changes people are witnessing in the world. Because the information comes from their peers and not just your spokespeople, your audience can see themselves in your survey and poll results. That makes the information more relatable, more credible.
Showing your audience how other people view an issue or respond to a situation is one of the most compelling ways to inspire action.
Another way to offer social proof is through testimonials. These are direct quotes or stories from people who have seen the impact of the work you do, possibly even benefitted from it themselves.
Whether you interview people specifically for the purpose of collecting testimonials or grab quotes from surveys, social media, and informal feedback, you can be building a testimonial library all year round.
Sometimes your impact can feel too big, too impersonal. If you fed 1,000 families last year, that stat may not be compelling to a donor who doesn’t understand what it’s like to be a family without access to food.
Your exemplars make abstract numbers and impacts feel real. By telling the story of one particular person, place, species, etc., you help your audience understand the tangible benefits of what your organization does. Once your audience understands one family’s experience, they can imagine the benefit of the work you do multiplied 1,000 times.
The best exemplars are true stories that illustrate your impact in one instance and are symbolic of your impact more broadly.
A lot of impact reporting involves showing how things have changed — basically before/after comparisons. People understand the value of your work when they understand why things are better now than they were before. This is especially true when you can show them the change with pictures, and when changes are dramatic.
The more knowledgeable your audience, the less baseline information you usually need to provide. When you’re collecting your impact information and background stats, be sure to include baseline references. That way, you’ll be able to show the starting point to people who aren’t familiar with the problems you’re solving.
The art of impact reporting is turning all of your knowledge and information into stories, stats, imagery, and quotes that feel elegantly simple. All that information should fuse into one, cohesive message.
In that sense, impact reporting isn’t about telling a complete story of your impact; it’s about sharing the minimum you need to share to convey an honest message.
That’s the other difference between impact measurement and impact reporting. Impact measurement focuses on collecting as much information as possible about the effects of your organization’s work. Then impact reporting removes, condenses, and translates what you’ve collected to get to the simplest message possible. It’s no wonder that editing and designing impact information can take as long as the collection and analysis!
The next time you find yourself playing impact whack-a-mole, just remember that it’s a sign of success. The “right” report will always be different for different audiences. And if you’re being asked to prepare a lot of reports, it means people are listening
When it comes time to turn your results into a report, be ready to make your point with and without numbers.
Here’s an example of a key impact number from our friends at Ocean Week Canada, who are launching an impact report this week:
In 2025, Ocean Week Canada attracted 500+ partners. That’s a 35% increase over last year and a 135% increase over 2023.
Here’s the same result with fewer numbers and more context:
Ocean Week Canada is the largest public ocean engagement event of its kind, and it’s growing every year.
When telling impact stories to general audiences, scan your information for numbers. See if you can translate those stats into a narrative statement. Then re-read both versions and choose the clearest, most compelling version.
Maybe you’re thinking yeah, yeah, yeah. You knew all this and you’ve been working on several different types of impact reports for ages.
But sometimes a report just doesn’t feel right. What happens when you get stuck? If you’re wondering what to do when your impact story doesn’t feel impactful enough, The Organizer #76 has some tips.
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