During my recent webinar on new and improved nonprofit annual reports (recording available to All-Access Pass Holders), I said that I would love to see a nonprofit do its annual report as an oversized postcard (think that big size popular with political candidates). This format has lots of advantages:
- The small space forces you to think about what’s most important to say
- The postcard format practically requires some nice photography, which donors love
- People still read postcards, even if standing over the recycling bin (if the photography is good enough, it will make it to a bulletin board instead)
- It’s much cheaper to design and mail than other direct mail formats
- Postcards couple nicely with emails for an integrated approach
While I love this idea, I haven’t actually seen a nonprofit do it, nor have I made the time to come up with some mock examples.
Enter Elissa Schloesser at Visual Voice. Elissa is a graphic designer who works for nonprofit clients. She took the webinar, and loved the idea too, so she came up with an example.
Click on over to her site to see the other side of the card. She also mentioned it to some clients who love it too, so we shall indeed have some real examples soon! I can’t wait to see how they turn out and to hear the reactions from donors.
Please share your examples of interesting nonprofit annual reports, including postcards, on our Annual Reports Wiki or link to them in the comments on this post.
