Editorial Direction for Foundation Annual Reports

Foundation annual reports get read for about three minutes by donors, twelve seconds by peer foundations, and not at all by most grantees. The editorial work that changes any of those numbers is more rigorous and less covered than most foundations expect.

The challenge

Most foundation annual reports default to genre conventions: a letter from the president, financial highlights, program summaries, grantee spotlights, board roster. The genre is well-established and ignorable. The annual reports that get read are the ones whose editorial direction departed from the genre at the brief stage.

What I deliver

• End-to-end editorial direction. Story selection, writing, editing, designer management, photo direction, and cross-department coordination.
• Story-selection strategy. The 8-12 stories in a typical foundation report should not be evenly weighted; two or three should be long enough to actually sit with.
• Bilingual editorial for foundations whose grantees and audiences are bilingual.
• Designer and photographer coordination aligned to the editorial choice, not the other way around.

Where the work connects to my career

I led editorial direction for FIU's Robert Stempel College of Public Health & Social Work's 2024 Impact Report and 2023 Public Health Impact Report — both available on Issuu. The discipline transfers directly to foundation reports: the audience is more engaged, the genre conventions are similar, the stakes for getting it right are higher.

"Foundation annual reports get read for about three minutes by donors, twelve seconds by peer foundations, and not at all by most grantees."