Case Study - Digital Annual Report

Spiritual Health Association

Design and development of an interactive online Annual Report. 

The Challenge

We were asked by one of our clients Spiritual Health Association to investigate the viability of creating an online Annual Report. 

The organisation needed an engaging but simple method to present their Annual Report to the board and members. It also needed to be affordable and easy for staff to edit themselves.

Print based methods were not economical because they require the use of specialised publishing software such as Adobe InDesign and the skills of a professional design studio to build and edit the document from start to finish. The organisation had previously experimented with creating Annual Reports themselves using Word and publishing a PDF online but the results were below par and didn’t reflect well on the organisation.

The Solution

Thanks to some innovative online tools and lateral thinking, we were able to develop an online solution for the Annual Report that gave our client the best of both worlds. A well designed and engaging one page website with navigation, video, animation, downloads and links etc. Plus an affordable, simple and easy process to edit.

The Annual Report was  environmentally friendly, requiring no paper to publish. It was easily accessible by all on all devices. It was accountable, due to the ability to track usage and was also used as a powerful promotional tool aimed at sponsors, donors and other partners. 

The DIY website platform chosen offered plenty of off-the-shelf tools and features that looked great and were easy for the client to use due to the drag-and-drop functionality. We basically designed the site and built the templates then the client added their content until they were ready to go live. 

We were also able to provide the client with an exact replica of the site in PDF format for download purposes, with all the navigation and hyperlinks retained. We used a dedicated domain name which appeared like a sub domain of their current website and organised the hosting which used a managed hosting service on Amazon Web Servers.

Now at any stage, the client can check in on the statistics, add admin users, make alterations and even add content to a secure section requiring a login. 

We also developed a plan for future Annual Reports that would avoid paying for multiple hosting services by converting old Annual Reports to interactive PDF’s that could be archived and downloaded from the organisations current website. Which then freed up  the previous years hosting service for the following year.

The Result

The result was a simple but eye-catching online Annual Report our client could send out to all their stakeholders knowing the readership would be high and the feedback would be positive. 

It responded to the unavoidable fact that readers are using digital platforms to consume their content. Unlike a PDF, the Annual Report was easy to read and navigate from all devices.

Most importantly for the client, the cost proved to be much cheaper than traditional Annual Report publications and reflected well on their brand.

Resources

The actual 2021/22 Spiritual Health Association Annual Report can be found here or within the Our Work section of our website.

If you are interested further, we have also written a more in-depth blog post about the Benefits of Digital Annual Reports.

If you have any questions or would like to find out more about digital Annual Reports, please Get in touch.