A Report Can Be Your Friend (Yes Really!)

Reports to your board, funders, donors and partners often have to be done, so it makes a lot of sense to make them work to your advantage.  If reports are not required, doing them anyway gives you the same opportunity to promote your work and serves as an anticipatory move that will give you an advantage the next time you make a request for funds or action.

Here are some ways that you can use reporting to your benefit:

• Shows, when done to the recipient’s requirements, that you are cooperative and compliant and have respect for their needs and specifications. All things that funders, boards and partners love.
• Allow you to provide statistics and examples on how well you are delivering on the projected and desired outcomes. If you see this as an opportunity to brag instead of an annoyance, your reports will be less aggravating to do and present a positive impression.
• Provide information that will be a foundation on which you will build future proposals and requests. You write the reports, so you can decide how they are written and what is included (beyond the required elements).  Use the opportunity to present the message you want them to receive.
• Supply a document that can be used for other purposes such as a press release, a separate grant, another report, historical reference or the book you plan to write.
• Offer an assessment of progress and obstacles to help your organization understand the situation and position you to inform board members, partners, stake holders, clients and even funders about things they can do to help or enhance and expand.
• Provide you and your staff with a sense of accomplishment. Seeing in print (or on a monitor) your progress and successes makes them more real and just plain feels good.

One key to getting the most benefit from reports is to treat them as something important and helpful, not as something annoying that must be done.   Spending time and/or money on the preparation of a report and then forgetting about it does not make sense.  If you include report preparation and use into your strategic and tactical planning you will reap benefits, because you will make sure it fits properly into everything you do. 

A last piece of advice, read your reports.  Read the ones that staff or consultants write for you.  This will keep you from being embarrassed.  Read past reports.  This will provide you perspective.