An impact report tells funders and supporters what changed because of your work. How to structure one, which numbers belong in it, and how to avoid the activity-list trap.
An impact report is the document a charity, social enterprise or funded programme publishes to show what changed as a result of its work. The common failure is easy to spot and hard to avoid: the report lists activity — sessions run, meals served, people reached — and stops there, leaving the reader to guess whether any of it mattered. An impact report earns attention when it connects what you did to what changed for someone.
Three words get used interchangeably and mean different things. Outputs are what you produced — 240 workshops delivered. Outcomes are the change in the people who took part — 68% reported improved confidence three months later. Impact is the longer-term, wider consequence, and it is the hardest to claim honestly because other things affect it too. Reports that promise impact and show outputs are the reason funders have become sceptical of the genre.
Say what you cannot prove. A report that acknowledges a small sample or a missing control group reads as more credible than one asserting causation from a satisfaction survey, and funders who read many reports notice the difference immediately.
Ettex Show works for the published version: a presentation-style report with charts, quotes and sections, shareable as a link rather than a 4 MB attachment, and easy to update when the next year's figures arrive. Where the underlying numbers come from volunteer hours, case records or donations, keeping them structured during the year is what makes the report a two-week job rather than a two-month one.
Most readers want a two-page summary; funders may want detail behind it. A short public report with an appendix or data annex serves both better than a single long document.
An annual report covers governance and finances for a period, often with statutory content. An impact report focuses on outcomes and can be published on any cycle.
Pick two outcomes, measure them consistently before and after, be explicit about limitations, and resist the urge to claim more than the method supports.
An investor pitch deck is not a description of your company. It is an argument that this is a large opportunity, that you are the people to take it, and that the next amount of money buys a specific, checkable result.
The hardest part of a slide deck is not designing it. It is deciding what the deck is for, who is in the room, and which three things they must remember — questions that get answered in a text editor, not a slide editor.
Most slide templates look great empty and fall apart once real content goes in. Here is what to check before you commit a deck to one — and how to fix a template you are stuck with.