Travel/tourism organization’s annual report goes beyond required reporting

Like most nonprofits, VISIT Milwaukee is required to release a report of its annual accomplishments, including the economic impact of tourism in the region. The output of an annual report can be a dry listing of numbers that simply complies with the rules, or it can take advantage of the opportunity to shine a light on achievements of the past year and look forward to the next. VISIT Milwaukee chose the latter approach, earning first place in the “Annual Report” category of PR Daily’s 2018 Nonprofit PR Awards.

To ensure every department’s achievements were reported, each department completed a form; this also ensured every department shared the same type of information, making it easier for the team to produce apples-to-apples content.

The team worked with each department to identify the most important information contributed through the forms, which also made it easier to break the information down into bite-sized elements that could be conveyed in multiple formats, from narrative text to images to the most compelling part of the report—the big, bold infographics that make it easy to consume data.

Other visual design elements help the report stand out. For example, the marketing results include the actual thumbnail images from the department’s campaigns throughout the year, offering an at-a-glance look at its prodigious output. The team took a minimalist approach to text, leaving lots of white space and employing strategic boldfacing to make reading a less onerous task. It’s even more impressive that all of the design work was handled in-house.

Congratulations to the VISIT Milwaukee team of Kristin Settle, Janice Vogt, Paul Upchurch and Megan Suardini.