How to publish an annual impact report online that supporters actually read
Most impact reports are a designed PDF that a handful of trustees open. A web page reaches the supporters who'll never download anything: it opens from an email on a phone, reads in five minutes, and ends with a way to give. To publish an annual impact report online, write it for that reader first, keep the figures honest, and link the full PDF for funders who need it.
Who does what, and when
| Week | Who | What |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Director and finance lead | Agree the five to eight figures the report will use, with their sources |
| 1 to 3 | Programme staff | Gather two or three stories and the consent for each |
| 3 | Comms lead | Draft the page text and choose photos |
| 4 | Trustee or board member | Check every figure against the accounts or records |
| 5 | Comms lead | Build, review and publish the page |
| 6 | Comms lead | Send it to supporters through your own email tool |
Figures you can stand behind
Pick a small number of figures and make each one checkable. "412 families received weekly food parcels" is better than "thousands helped". For each figure, write down where it came from (attendance records, the accounts, a survey with its response count) and keep that note with the report. If a number is an estimate, say so. If the year went worse than the last, say that too, with what you learned; supporters notice when only good news appears. Financial figures should match the published accounts exactly.
Stories with consent
- Ask in writing, saying where the story will appear (a public web page and the PDF), for how long, and how to withdraw.
- Let people choose how they're named: full name, first name only, or anonymous. Default to less.
- Show them the final wording before publishing.
- Use photos only with separate photo consent, and never in a way that identifies someone who asked not to be.
Build the page
- Describe the report in a sentence: "a one-page annual impact report for a food bank, with key figures, three stories, where the money went and a donate button".
- Choose a calm design system. Editorial suits a reading-length page; Organic suits community charities. One action colour, used for the donate button.
- Lead with the year in a sentence, then the figures, each as a short line with context.
- Add the stories as entries in a CMS collection, with your own photos in its image field as hosted addresses. Write alt text that describes what each photo shows.
- Show where the money went as a short list or table: programmes, staff, running costs, fundraising. Plain numbers, matching the accounts.
- End with the ask. A sentence on next year's plan and a donate button pointing at your payment link from Stripe Payment Links, PayPal or another supported provider. The link is shared across the account, so it opens the same checkout as any other donate button you have.
- Link the full PDF for funders and trustees. Host it somewhere you control, such as your own cloud storage with a public link, and link to it from the page; it can't be embedded.
- Keep past years as entries in a CMS collection if you want an archive, each with its own address.
Check, publish, send
Read the page on a phone from top to bottom; it should take under five minutes. Have the trustee check figures on the built page, not the draft document, since numbers can change in editing. Publish, then send the link to your supporters from your own email tool with one sentence and one figure in the message. Anticode doesn't email your list. Afterwards, the site's analytics show views by day and source, so you can see how many people opened it from the email versus social posts.
Web page or PDF?
- Web page
- Opens instantly on a phone, can be read by screen readers and search engines, ends with a donate button, and can be corrected after publishing.
- Expected by some funders and for formal filings, keeps exact layout for print, but is hard to read on a phone and often unread.
Doing both, with the page as the main version, covers everyone.
Limits
Anticode doesn't produce the PDF, host downloadable files for the page, draw charts from your data, embed video, or send the report to supporters. It doesn't check your figures. Legal reporting duties for charities depend on your country and are separate from any public impact page. See nonprofits for the wider site and online donations for a small charity for the giving side.
Questions people ask
What should an impact report include?
The year in a sentence, a few checkable figures, two or three stories with consent, where the money went, and what's next with a way to give.
Can I publish an annual impact report online and still have a PDF?
Yes. Make the web page the main version and link the PDF, hosted in your own storage, for those who need it.
Can the page include charts?
Not drawn from data. Use a short table or plain figures, which also read better on phones and with screen readers.