Case Study: Going short with an annual report
Meet the Client
For more than 35 years, Jessie’s—The June Callwood Centre for Young Women (Jessie’s)—has served pregnant teens and youth in Toronto who face poverty and social isolation. Through education, health, and social services programs, Jessie’s supports young moms with the knowledge, skills, and opportunities to promote the healthy development of their children and to rise and reach their full potential as adults and new parents.
We were introduced to Jessie’s in late 2019, when we were hired to write a single appeal letter for their holiday fundraising campaign. This letter had always been written internally. The impactful letter we wrote, which showcased one young woman’s success thanks to Jessie’s, connected with donors and raised more money than the organization’s previous holiday appeal letters.
The Client’s Challenge
After working with Jessie’s on a number of other donor communications and fundraising projects, they asked us to produce their 2020 annual report. Like the appeal letter and other communications projects, the annual report had always been written and produced internally. While sometimes used as a fundraising tool, it was primarily a 16-to-24-page year-in-review type of document.
Truly showing the impact donors made on the organization was more important than ever during the pandemic. COVID-19 had created considerable challenges for the organization, which had to close its doors to in-person support, and for those in their community who struggled to access Jessie’s resources. Unable to truly connect with donors any other way than in writing, Jessie’s needed to showcase their dedicated efforts to continue supporting their community in a way that both informed and inspired donors.
Our Solution
To keep costs down, a 4-page newsletter-style annual report was decided upon. In long annual reports, it’s easy to include everything and anything that happened in the past year, but with a short one, it’s more important than ever to develop a strong theme. Doing so makes it easier to decide what to include and what to exclude. We brainstormed a simple theme, ‘Because of you’, focusing it solely on the donors and their importance to the organization and the youth they serve.
We landed on featuring an impact story of a young mom who was able to complete high school virtually in the spring with Jessie’s help, a heartfelt letter from the board chair, a handful of powerful stats from the past year, and a round-up of how Jessie’s pivoted each of its primary programs during the spring shutdown in order to help and support pregnant youth and young parents reach their full potential as adults even during this stressful and challenging time.
On the back page, we included the financial pie graphs from the past fiscal year and, as a way to engage donors to look and plan for the future, rather than focus on Jessie’s past financial success (which was the focus of the impact stories on the three previous pages), we wrote a short, poignant story focusing on three key points from their strategic plan. Each point clearly showcased to donors that Jessie’s need for support did not end with their previous year’s financial success.
As the report focused on the organization’s impact on its community, rather than including the traditional list of donors (as there is no space to do so in a 4-page report), Jessie’s created a page on their website, and a simple call to action on the back page directed readers to it.
Once the articles were complete, like with the support we provided to CultureLink with their annual report, we brought in a designer to powerfully communicate the theme through visuals, incorporating bright and uplifting colours and photos to help convey both gratitude and hope.
In order to ease the project management burden on the client, the Luminate team managed the entire production, review and proofreading process on Jessie’s behalf. Lastly, upon final signoff, we arranged for the printer and ensured their annual report was delivered to their office on time.
Testimonial
“Working with Luminate Communications has been a great experience. They truly understand the challenges that the not-for profit sector faces regarding financial sustainability. In 2019 for the first time in Jessie’s history, we decided to hire an external company to support our fundraising campaigns and communication materials. Jessie’s is extremely satisfied with the work that Luminate Communications has produced and its result. We anticipate that this partnership will continue to be of significant value to our work.”
Maritza Sanchez
Executive Director