Why familiarity matters as much as skill
Travellers Aid Australia is a charity and social enterprise that helps people of all abilities travel with confidence and dignity. I’ve worked with them on several annual reports now and while each is its own project, none of them start from zero.
Each year we work within a tight timeframe to gather and synthesise input from across the organisation. The report must meet ACNC and social enterprise reporting requirements while still speaking clearly to service users, funders, donors and partners.
An annual report is never a small project, but an established working relationship makes every year smoother and more efficient than the last.
The pressure points
Annual reports like this one draw on many parts of an organisation. Content comes from different teams, in different formats, on different timelines. Getting it into shape takes a communication specialist who understands the organisation’s evolving programs, its tone and its history, not just this year’s content.
When a new writer starts fresh each year, that understanding must be rebuilt from scratch. Deadlines, terminology and internal processes all need explaining again. This takes the project manager’s time and adds risk to the report’s consistency from one year to the next.
How we approached it
A page plan and reporting template I’d built in earlier years means each new report starts with structure already in place. I know which business areas tend to send more content than fits, and which need a reminder to contribute.
I also know what a Travellers Aid Australia story sounds like, the nuance in its language and the words it does and doesn’t like. That means I can shape and check content against what I already know to be accurate. And that mean fewer revision rounds and faster approvals.
Where judgement mattered
The value built over several reports shows up most clearly in seemingly small decisions. Which stories have been told before, which programs and initiatives introduced in previous reports are due for review and where information doesn’t sound quite right.
This kind of judgement can’t be briefed in a single meeting. It comes from working with the same organisation, year after year, and paying attention to what changes and what stays the same.
For the project manager, this also means less time spent onboarding a writer and more time invested in producing a meaningful report.
How things landed
No single metric captures the value of a long-term working relationship. The value is found in a client who keeps returning, trusting in a successful and established process that is smoother and calmer every time.
It’s also found in the feedback like this from Travellers Aid CEO Elias Lebbos:
‘Tanya consistently delivers high-quality work and is a pleasure to collaborate with. Her expertise and attention to detail make her a valued part of our extended team.’
The result
A long-term working relationship with an annual report writer means less time re-explaining the basics and more time crafting the report itself. For an organisation with limited internal comms resources, that trade-off matters. It protects the project manager’s time for other work and gives the report the benefit of a communication specialist who understands the organisation’s voice, audience and mission.
Get in touch to see if this could be the start of a long-term annual report relationship. Or download my free Not-for-profit Annual Report Kick-off Guide planning resource.
Tanya Hollis provides senior communications judgement, strong writing and calm support for small not-for-profit and social enterprise comms teams with big workloads and important stories to tell.
