CUPS goes digital for 2020 Annual Report
The CUPS Calgary Society has been a staple non-profit organization in Calgary for more than 30 years. With a focus on integrated care, their team of more than 150 staff work to help vulnerable community members become more resilient to tackle life’s challenges.
Since 2017, MLC & Co. has worked closely with CUPS to provide integrated communications support, including strategic planning, content development, storytelling and social media.
Engaging storytelling is a priority focus for the organization and so it only made sense that CUPS made the decision to shift their entire Annual Report to a digital platform for 2020. And not just a PDF that can be read online, but to a full microsite dedicated to the report.
Essential communications can still be engaging
Annual Reports fall into the essential communications category. It’s required and necessary to provide an update to industry and stakeholders of operating and financial activities from the past year.
However, essential doesn’t have to mean static and dry.
Here are five reasons MLC recommends a digital annual report.
It’s engaging and interactive. Incorporating videos and dynamic graphics allows the content to lift off the page and be more appealing to the reader. Instead of trying to flip through page after page in a digital magazine viewer, a scrolling page allows the reader to follow a journey through the organization. At CUPS, we started with big impact statements and then presented opportunities to read more about how clients have been impacted and some of their incredible volunteers.
It becomes a marketing tool. Rather than printing hundreds of copies that collect dust or never make it out of the box, the digital report is a link that can be easily shared in emails with stakeholders and prospective donors, can be incorporated in quarterly updates and shared on social media platforms. Brand the report — give it a name and build out a marketing campaign directly to support the launch.
It’s measurable. Handing out physical annual reports to stakeholders doesn’t allow you to know how many people actually crack the cover. With the digital annual report, we can track web traffic and determine where they are coming from. Through monitoring the analytics, we can finesse and adjust the marketing of the piece.
It can be edited if needed. How many times have you received your annual report and then realized there was an error? Or you thought of something else that should be included. With a printed copy, that’s a full reprint. For digital, it’s a simple matter of incorporating it into the platform.
It’s more cost effective. There will always be some standard costs to an annual report. Photography, videography, design, copy writing etc. — those haven’t changed. What has changed is the printing cost which becomes almost negligible.
We also recognize that you still may need a printed piece available for those who want it. This is where the PDF comes to play. Consider a two-pager, printable PDF that includes all of the highlights from the report. Financials and other key elements (e.g. Letter from Executive) can be their own stand-alone documents that are easily linked within the digital report.