Ready to start creating your nonprofit annual report, but don’t know how annual report infographics fit in? In this blog, we’ll teach you everything you need to know, including why infographics are important, and how you can create them.
Why does annual report design matter?
Before we dive into infographics, let’s understand why annual report design is important.
Form 990s are required of nonprofits every single year. This required documentation for the federal government doesn’t require any kind of fancy design.
However, a nonprofit annual report—a yearly overview of an organization’s financials, accomplishments, updates, and more—must be designed well. Unlike Form 990, an annual report can be considered a marketing tool. Much like creating a professional website, or event pamphlet, an annual report’s success is largely based on its design qualities. Or, how engaging, on-brand, and easy to read it is.
✅ Beautiful report design engages readers
No one wants to read a dry, text-book-like report with long paragraphs, little color, and certainly no visual elements. That sounds like a boring report. Annual reports that prioritize design—the colors, the graphics, and the images—encourage supporters to continue reading.
✅ Beautiful report design builds trust with readers
In order to garner donations, supporters must be able to trust the organization they’re contributing to. When nonprofits publish reports that are poorly designed, unprofessional, and don’t match their organizational brand, supporters can question the validity of an organization. Well-designed annual reports help build trust, and remind readers of your mission.
✅ Beautiful report design improves readability
One of the biggest reasons that annual report design is so important is that it improves readability. Instead of including dense paragraphs in your annual report, infographics (as we’ll dive into), blocked text, illustrations, bold colors, and more, can all improve the reading experience.
⭐ Need some inspiration? Check out the best annual report examples of 2023→
How can nonprofits use infographics?
One of the most essential parts of great annual report design is the use of infographics. Though they can be used in several ways throughout the report, there are a few most common use cases.
Annual report infographics can be used for:
👉 Revenue and expenses
👉Donations
👉 Measuring impact
👉 Explaining a program or initiative
💥 Want to see what infographics would look like in a polished report? Get a custom, free sample annual report →
Why are annual report infographics important?
When donors can understand your findings—whether they’re financial metrics or impact measurements—they’re more likely to trust your organization, and engage with it. If supporters are confused, on the other hand, they’ll be less excited to contribute or spread the word about your cause.
To better understand this, let’s take a look at an example: have you ever opened a board report that’s packed with complicated metrics? If so, you probably took one look and felt overwhelmed and disinterested. In fact, you may have completely stopped reading.
When organizations don’t focus on data visualization, readers can feel disconnected and confused. In the nonprofit world, that leads to poor supporter loyalty and low donor retention rates. If your audience can’t understand your metrics, they’re unlikely to support your cause.
Readers often get overwhelmed by dense material. But, building pie, line, or bar graphs, for example, to showcase your key metrics, will entertain readers and keep them focused on your findings.
What are the different kinds of infographics?
There are plenty of different kinds of infographics that nonprofits can use in their reporting. When selecting what kind you’d like to create, consider what kind of information you’re conveying, and what might be most helpful to readers.
Examples of annual report infographics might include:
👉 Pie charts
👉 Line graphs
👉 Bar graphs and bar charts
👉 Donut charts
👉 Maps
👉 Illustrations
How to create amazing annual report infographics
1.Gather the right data and people 👥
When creating your infographic, it’s important to first begin collecting all the relevant data you need. Collecting the right data might require the help of other staff members, board members, volunteers, or even a professional graphic designer
2. Simplify 🧐
One of the keys to creating great infographics is not including too much information. Too much information in your infographic might confuse readers—which defeats the purpose of the infographic in the first place.
To simplify your data, create broader categories that multiple data sets can fit under. Or, determine what data is necessary to share and which is less relevant.
When simplifying, also be sure to consider your audience. Consider what information they might be interested in learning, why, and how you can help answer their questions.
3. Select the right colors and design features 🎨
When creating your infographics, be sure to use colors, fonts, and other elements that are aligned with your brand identity, as well as with the rest of the theme of the annual report.
4. Add context 📝
Some infographics are so self-explanatory that they require little to no context. However, it’s never a bad idea to give readers a bit more of an understanding of what they’re looking at, to avoid any confusion.
Or, consider adding in some stories of impact, photos, of videos of beneficiaries or other stakeholders to accompany these infographics. Adding context to build an emotional connection is never a bad idea when it comes to nonprofit annual reporting.
5. Publish it 🗣
With an annual report builder, nonprofits can upload their infographics right into their annual report. With an annual report design template, nonprofits can identify exactly where an infographic should go, without having to think about it themselves. Then, they can share their report anywhere an everywhere—on social media, via newsletter, and more.
To really see successful data visualization at work, let’s take a look at a few beautiful report examples that nail it:
8 best nonprofit annual report infographic examples of 2023 💥
Catholic Community Foundation
Huge numbers—like donations in the millions—can be pretty hard to conceptualize. Instead of listing out all of the contributions throughout the years, CCF displays them in an easy-to-read bar graph.
💙 What we love about this report:
- The colors are easy to read and take a more minimalist approach
- Only important information is included so readers aren’t overwhelmed
- The chart uses whole numbers that are easy to understand and conceptualize
Episcopal Day San Mateo
Episcopal Day San Mateo’s data visualization is pretty amazing. Though there’s lots of information to convey to readers, there’s little to no confusion about their metrics. Plus by using a nonprofit annual report design template, they didn’t have to stress about where in their report they might place it.
💙 What we love about this annual report:
- The use of bright colors is always a great design technique. In using them, the different categories within the infographics are easy to see and differentiate from one another
- The key at the bottom gives readers all of the context they need, including exact percentages so there isn’t any question about the measurements
- The ability for readers to click on and interact with the infographics is pretty incredible. By using a digital annual report builder they were able to design an infographic that responds to readers’ clicks!
Monkey Helpers
Monkey Helpers’ infographics is a great example of reader-friendly data visualization in action, for a few distinct reasons.
💙 Why we love this annual report:
- Monkey Helpers has simplified their data points into three broad categories, making it easier to read and understand
- The colors they’ve chosen perfectly match the rest of their report and their brand identity
- The legend on the right hand side is succinct and clear
Workplace Safety North
Workplace safety is a great example of data visualization that helps readers understand industry trends and news.
Why we love this annual report:
- This simple illustration says a whole lot—it breaks down all of the important metrics that are crucial for readers to understand
- The colors used, and the font, are not only easy to see and read, but they match their unique branding perfectly
- If readers want more detail, they can click on the text, “click to view full infographic” which provides even more context.
The Hollywood Partnership
The Hollywood Partnership needed a way to show readers a quick glance into their market data, without overwhelming them. Their data visualization technique could not be better.
💙 Why we love this annual report:
- It uses simple, eye-catching illustrations
- The branding of the illustrations perfectly matches their brand identity and the rest of their report
Jewish Federation
In this example, the Jewish Federation is reporting some key financial metrics. Mainly, their total revenue and services throughout 2018. Each of these categories is full of more granular information. Their expenses often include administrative costs, program expenses, and more. And much is the same for their revenue which includes major donations, peer-to-peer fundraising, and more.
This annual report, unlike others, does the work for readers so they don’t have to.
💙 What we love about this annual report:
- This nonprofit used a pie chart to show different categories of expenses and revenue with bright colors
- Their data visualization is interactive. It allows readers to scroll over the categories and learn more about them
- The data has minimal writing which allows readers to scan the information quickly
National Foundation of Infectious Diseases
Supporters don’t need to be bogged down by specific data. They need to understand a holistic picture of your financials. In the case of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, their expenditure is broken down into two broad categories (as seen above).
💙 What we love about this annual report:
- It prioritizes simplicity for ease of reading
- It gives readers a comprehensive understanding without bogging them down with unnecessary information
- It’s eye-catching and uses appropriate brand colors. Both of which help to reinforce the organization’s story
WWF
Most people consider data visualization to go hand in hand with financial metrics. But, data visualization can also be a useful tool when it comes to illustrating other metrics. In the case of WWF, their organization created a comprehensive timeline to showcase ongoing harm to tigers.
WWF could have explained the progression through a series of paragraphs. Instead, this timeline allows readers to better understand the exact progression through visuals.
💙 What we love about this annual report:
- The timeline allows readers to see the “big picture”
- The reading experience is interactive, guiding the audience through the timeline
- It distills complex information into bite-sized facts
Create your report with an annual report builder 🚀
No matter what your organization’s mission is, annual report infographics are a great way to communicate dense data to your supporters. By using an annual report builder like Yearly, nonprofits can choose from several annual report templates, and use drag-and-drop editing to really make their infographics stand out.
⭐ To get started, sign up for free with Yearly →
Josh Kligman is the CEO of Yearly, a platform for nonprofits to create their own digital reports. Josh has been working with nonprofits on annual reports, brands and partnerships since 2011. He is helping nonprofits create more engaging, digital annual and impact reports with Yearly. Throughout his career, Josh has helped launch and run nonprofit brand campaigns and media partnerships nationally and locally, using television, radio and web, to amplify the reach of campaigns and provide demonstrated value for non-profit stakeholders. Josh received his B.A. from American University in Communications and his M.B.A. from American University in Marketing Management and Entrepreneurship.