Working with V.I.N. staff to develop a brand-new annual report for 2019

An annual report is the identity card of an organization. It is a key tool to introduce an organization to donors, institutions, partners, and other stakeholders as well as to present the latest programs’ results. When I started facilitating report writing in Volunteers Initiative Nepal, I had that belief in my mind. I joined them at the beginning of September 2019 and, as a first assignment, I was asked to revise and compose the annual report for 2018. V.I.N. had annual reports up to that year but didn’t have the time to create one for 2018. After spending days and days on that task, I realized that what I wanted to achieve with V.I.N.’s annual report, wasn’t possible with the documents I’ve received from them which was only a collection of minutes accompanied by stamp-sized low-quality pictures. By browsing the organization’s website, I could see that style was coherent with the past editions of annual reports.

Supervising the Women's Empowerment Team (Ph. C. M. Rossmann)

The programs’ reports that I have received were very diverse in terms of structure, content and length. The writing style wasn’t unified and probably the authors various. Data were only quantitative and, in some cases, anecdotal. In my opinion, there was also a lack of analysis of results and feedback from the beneficiaries. I came to the conclusion that the process V.I.N. has gone through to carry out the annual report and the type of report it used so far was not able to highlight the organization’s achievements at all.

However, reading through the above-mentioned documents for the 2018 report, provided me with some useful knowledge: I could get a better understanding of staff’s perception of their work and their idea of reporting to an audience which was very helpful in terms of engagement in a process of change. I decided to stop with the 2018 edition and to put all my efforts into training and guiding the staff in delivering a new type of report. I was definitely excited about this prospect and to see to what extent I could carry out a quality document. Coordinating the annual report was not an easy job and I have faced many challenges. Having all the staff on board was also challenging and I could reach this goal only tailoring my strategies to their capacities. Despite the difficulties (or maybe because of them), I have enjoyed this activity very much. I devoted myself to this task for three months and coordinated around 15 people.

With the help of Michaela – EUAV in the position of Volunteer Manager and flatmate – I facilitated a workshop about report designing, writing and use of data. I asked the participants to divide into teams and to work on their respective project reports online. The training was successful and participants gave positive feedback on our guidance and teamwork strategies. The online folders created during the training have become the basis for further developments. I was gradually adding there all the elements of the future report, photos and graphs included. To date, I have worked with the various teams updating files collected in that folder. Nevertheless, I was worried about the progress of the work since the teams were busy with other tasks in the field. To deliver a quality report we needed a regular and scheduled practice.

What a difference follow-up and a tutoring system make

During a meeting with the program manager, Laxhmi Prasad Ghimire, I asked how V.I.N. supported staff in report writing in the past. A few years earlier, a three days-long training on that matter was organized, but little improved. He identified the lack of follow-up as the main reason for this lack of change. Based on his feedback, I reorganized all my plans. I asked to cancel the scheduled training on monitoring and evaluation, and I concentrated all my efforts in supervising the teams to write the 2019 report.

With the project staff and EU Aid Volunteers (Ph. C. D. Shreshta)

The report was a turning point in my deployment in Nepal. After four months, I was finally able to collaborate with my main interlocutors: the project staff. In the beginning, they were reluctant to write. They were used to delegating report writing to V.I.N. volunteers and to paste their texts into the final report. We all know that writing is not an easy task at all and needs a lot of practice. I started inquiring about their writing skills and their ideas about reporting in order to implement a support strategy. Together with the support for project staff given by the EUAVs Michaela, Martina and Marie, and the Nepalese volunteer Pratiksha, we progressed in writing style and data analysis. This collaboration and tutoring of the EUAVs to staff were definitely a key element of the overall strategy. I could have not reached this goal without them.

Another important action gave a big push to the annual report. During that time, the managers were busy with the staff performance appraisal, and I was asked to join them in improving their techniques. Michaela proposed the 360-Degree Performance Appraisal and I immediately supported this idea and it was approved by management. Thanks to the application of this particular appraisal method, management and staff were able to see more clearly the potentials and limitations, including difficulties in delivering reliable data and organizing texts. It made clear that all staff needed time and practice to give birth to a different type of annual report. Quality report writing became a staff development goal and the overall process a learning experience for all staff and volunteers involved.

Conducting training on data collection (Ph. C. D. Ghimire)

While the teams were busy with integrating and amending the texts according to my feedback, I was focusing on the missing parts. Inspired by reports published by other international NGOs, I decided to create new sections highlighting the enormous type of work made by V.I.N. I was seeing partial and inconsistent information throughout reports, leaflets, websites, and other key documents. My objective was to clarify and summarize some key information related to the organization, and to give an idea of how they were working. For example, I would have liked to see a section outlining the type of problems faced by the Nepalese in rural areas, especially by vulnerable children and adults, in order to give a clear justification to their approach and actions.

The last month was mainly dedicated to graphic design and other small amendments. I worked with Mibis, the organization’s webmaster, for the second time and I really found him talented and creative. I definitely enjoyed working with him. For the purpose of designing the report, he also learnt how to use new software able to perform quality graphics. In the last two weeks, after I was repatriated, we worked together remotely and, despite the time difference, we have been able to collaborate effectively until the end.

 What I have learnt from this experience so far

The report cover (Ph. C. Winter Media GmbH)

After about three months of work, V.I.N. has published the 2019 annual report*: completely revised in terms of concept, structure, format, and graphic design. There is still room for improvement for future reports. For instance, I would like to see an outline of the organization’s strategic plan, and of its outcomes. Together with the program manager and the project staff, I started implementing a monitoring and evaluation system: it is definitely essential to include in a quality report reliable quantitative and qualitative data. Being able to communicate to what extent the objectives have been reached and how relevant, efficient, and sustainable the program implementation is, it’s at the core of such a document. I hope that in the future, with the help of other EUAVs, Volunteers Initiative Nepal will be able to publish a comprehensive report with all the information described above. I also hope that this has been a useful learning experience for all the staff members and the volunteers involved and that they will keep as a lesson for the future.

To summarize, I would like to give some top tips for a good report, based on my experience and research. First, make language clear and simple. Second, avoid self-celebration and highlight the room for improvement and further developments. Third, use a few quality pictures able to express your approach and your results. Fourth, give only evidence-based information coming from reliable data and, if possible, double-check them. Fifth, entrust someone as a coordinator and ask him/her to work closely with all the staff. If the NGO has access to a graphic designer, then even better. And lastly, I would recommend identifying a clear visual and written communication style.

* Click here to download the 2019 annual report.