Autumn is here, time to start looking into the beginning of 2023. Preparations for those communications tools you want to have implemented in January/February have to start soon. A great example is the 2022 Annual Report or Activity Report.
I discussed the importance of this communications tool already before. Check here.
This time I want to point out that it makes a lot of sense to publish and distribute the Annual Report by end of January. Why is that?
Content is fresh and will thereby be of higher interest to readers
You can use it for the next months for introducing your association to new stakeholders or for updating your external target audiences
Your members are of course the internal target audience. You need to impress them with all that has happened in 2022.
Preparing the Annual Report is no mystery. It requires a simple project plan, a project manager and a creative support.
In my experience the most challenging part is getting the content together.
Specifically, the key achievements are not easy to define. Where was your association really able to influence something? Do you have a proof point for that?
Other parts of the content are easy: when and where did you present? What were the important publications? Any event you organized? Maybe an overview of your Board Members or Working Groups to illustrate the competence in your association. Good to include are also the targets for 2023. This makes the report even more meaningful for the audience.
For preparing the Annual Report, the timeframe can be the following:
Week 1-2: Briefing with content structure, expectations for number of pages, format and cost estimation
Week 3-6: Content drafting and alignment
Week 7-9: Design drafting, change requests
Week 10: info to Board and feedback
Week 11-12: finalising the report
In a nutshell: If you include a 2-week Christmas break, you need about 14 weeks for the project. So, start in mid-October!
Oh, by the way, I am always happy to help! With me you also get a cool communications agency creating wonderful stuff! Check out sample projects here.