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These reports serve many purposes for organizations, from meeting regulatory standards and increasing transparency to communicating impact to inspire key stakeholders, employees and prospective investors/donors. Based on an organization’s needs and measures of success, annual reports can take many forms, whether it’s a one-page impact report, an elevated piece with unique and innovative printing methods, or a dynamic digital template.
As the process of planning for next year’s annual reports draws nearer, consider these factors when evaluating which format will best support your organization’s goals.
When starting the annual report process, revisit your target audience and desired outcomes to ensure the report meets the evolving needs of your organization. For example, corporations may be more focused on shareholders and investors, with a goal of communicating the company’s financial health and plans for the future. On the other hand, nonprofits are more likely to be focused on storytelling and communicating impact to donors, those they serve and the general public. These audiences can change year to year depending on your evolving strategic goals.
When you know who you’re speaking to, the audience size, what their interests are and how they like to receive information, you can select an annual report format that reflects the current needs of your organization — and it may not be the way you’ve always approached it.
Emspace developed an eye-catching, collaborative template for Park Omaha’s annual report with bold infographics, artful photography and impactful storytelling. We tailored the content to the interests of local and national parking and mobility industry peers and municipal peers while ensuring the language was direct enough for any person to read. These key audiences influenced the report’s dual format approach of a screen reader-friendly online PDF and a printed booklet. The online version was uploaded to Park Omaha’s website and promoted on social media, where industry peers follow Park Omaha. The division’s new manager distributed the booklet across city departments and utilized it as a leave-behind when attending or speaking at parking and mobility conferences. While containing the same content, each version of the report was scaled to appropriately fit its dimensions for readability. A team member of a regional planning agency remarked: “Great infographics and bite-sized amounts of information throughout! Well done!”
Budget is another important factor to consider when evaluating format. If your organization has a smaller target audience and doesn’t disclose annual report information publicly, a more elaborate, printed report that people can keep and refer back to may be appealing. If your organization’s goal is to make content accessible and visible to a wide audience, but you don’t have a large budget, a digital annual report using existing website blocks/content could be more cost-effective and attainable.
Step Up to Quality, a voluntary quality-improvement program for early childhood education providers in Nebraska, has been producing annual reports to showcase its impact since 2021. After producing a succinct PDF annual report for its first few years, our team at Emspace recommended an additional solution that was still budget-friendly for them. In 2025, Emspace and Step Up to Quality worked together to produce the report as a digital landing page, as well as the PDF version. By utilizing existing blocks and elements from their site, our team was able to work efficiently, while also elevating the user experience with animated graphics and accessible data.
Annual reports typically include a letter from leadership, highlights and data from the year, financial information and a listing of donors when relevant. Beyond this basic information, think about what additional information is important to your target audience and the format that would best convey it. Does your organization have compelling statistics, videos, stories and informational maps to share? If so, a webpage or microsite can incorporate these elements, make the user experience more interactive and encourage further website exploration through hyperlinks. Is the information you intend to share more straightforward? A simple, printed report or digital PDF may be more appropriate. Additionally, consider if the report’s information may change quickly and if you want to keep stakeholders continually updated — this can be supported by a digital format.
Emspace worked alongside the Tenaska team on its annual reports for years, producing beautifully executed printed reports to showcase its breadth of expertise and impact in the energy industry. After talking with their team more closely about the report’s content, we discussed the limitations of the printed format when considering their maps, statistics and digital content. For their 2021 annual report, our teams aligned on pursuing an extensive, fully digital annual report to best tell their story. The digital report put the user experience first: interactive maps allowed users to learn more about Tenaska’s projects, their growth not just in 2021 but year-over-year and more; links to relevant articles and videos reinforced Tenaska’s 2021 milestones; and animated stats added visual interest. The components developed for the annual report site were so well received that our team then integrated them into Tenaska’s primary website.
Digital annual reports best support accessibility. Having your annual report live online means it can be found by anyone who would like to learn more or share about your organization, such as current and potential employees, donors and investors. It also means your content can be more easily accessed by people with low vision who need larger visuals or use screen readers (if the report is formatted correctly). When developing your annual report, also consider language accessibility needs and possible tools or translation services to ensure your key audiences can read and access the content.
Throughout our many years of working with Visiting Nurse Association (VNA), the format of their annual reports has evolved. In recent years, our teams discussed the benefits of a digital-first report, an option that would save them production dollars and would widen their reach online. The first iterations of their digital annual report utilized Issuu, a tool that converts PDFs and documents into an interactive flipbook. After talking more intentionally about user accessibility, our team recommended switching from Issuu to a landing page format. The new format ensured content could be read by screen readers and is easier to navigate. VNA supplements its digital annual report with a printed postcard, a way to showcase high-level impact while driving people to the digital version to learn more.
Now that you’ve strategically considered your audiences, goals, budget, content and accessibility needs, you can execute your annual report with confidence.
Remember, your report doesn’t have to be strictly print or digital. We’ve helped clients create digital-friendly, accessible PDFs of their print-first reports to upload online, and we’ve also produced high-level impact postcards to lead audiences to fully digital reports. The right solution will be unique to your organization — we’re happy to help provide additional guidance to ensure your efforts show impact.
