Prove nonprofit impact with an outstanding SROI report

How do you evaluate the financial effectiveness of your nonprofit organization?
What’s the social impact of your activities?
How do you even start estimating social impact?

Successful nonprofit organizations measure their social impact and use that information to win over new supporters. One of these tools is the SROI report.

What is the SROI report?

SROI or Social Return on Investment is used to analyze the benefits of a nonprofit organization’s activities (social, environmental, or other) and transfer them into monetary values. 

Similar to ROI (Return on Investment), SROI shows the financial impact, comparing the quantified value of the program or project with its operating costs. In other words, SROI helps nonprofits understand value creation through capital allocation. But it adds something more than just return on investment – the social impact of the nonprofit’s work.

SROI not only measures whether the benefits of your work outweigh their costs but also helps to discover and highlight what would happen if your nonprofit organization didn’t exist at all. 

That’s why it’s crucial to make the SROI report as good as possible, following the best practices for data visualization. 

Don’t feel like designing an SROI report from scratch? No worries! We have a set of report templates you can use and customize for your needs.

How to make your SROI report more impactful

As a nonprofit organization, you need to ensure information transparency within all your stakeholders, donors, and community.

But why would you use oversaturated and dense graphics or boring PDFs if you can create professional-looking yet engaging reports, infographics, and maps in minutes?

Learn how to communicate with data, inspire people to take action, and prove your social impact with an improved SROI report.

Use charts, graphs, and maps to make your message clear

Charts and graphs are an excellent way to show trends, compare data, and highlight important details for your donors. They will provide information that’s clear at a glance.

For example, use pie charts to display proportions of used financial resources per activity or time period. Or try out interactive maps that can bring awareness to the problem or explain the social impact of your work by region.

Here’s a sneak into UNICEF “State of the World’s Hand Hygiene” report.
This is an example of a well-made chart that immediately delivers the main message despite a complicated data scope. Colors highlight the pain (limited or no hygiene services at schools), columns represent the regions facing this problem and the changes they experience over 5 years.

Images in an SROI report? YES!

Nothing creates a more personal connection than visuals. Images and videos can play a vital role in your report of social impact. You can show “before and after” comparisons, use images with people in them, or even include recorded video interviews.

To add extra interactivity and draw attention to essential details, you can place GIFs and animated stickers throughout your SROI report – the Infogram library has tons of visual elements you can use.

Just remember – less is more. Keep it simple when choosing visuals and try to use a consistent color palette. This way, you’ll have a balanced design without an eye-hurting and unbalanced mix of patterns, colors, and styles.

Here’s how the right pictures can add more personal value and power to your story. “Not Enough Report 2018” made by Amnesty International.

Bring interactivity to your homepage

Even if you don’t publish an SROI report on your website, it’s still a great asset that you need to use. 90% of visitors spend more time on pages with interactive charts and infographics. Use that time to attract supporters, volunteers, and donations.

Embed dynamic and interactive content such as infographics, dashboards, or maps on your page. Encourage website visitors to explore more content. Add callouts with more detailed information, comparisons, grouped regions in maps, or anything else your audience can click, hover over, zoom, and interact with. Looks fancy but costs nothing. 

Projects created with Infogram can be seamlessly embedded into any website or e-commerce platform, delivering new experiences for visitors to learn more about your cause.

Many organizations have approved Infogram as an easy-to-use tool to create infographics, charts, maps, and other visual assets. Explore the example library and get inspired!

Present your SROI report with confidence

When presenting the social impact of your nonprofit organization’s activities, you need to build a personal connection with the audience – even in virtual meetings. 

The era or your image as a small rectangle in the corner of the virtual meeting app is over. Now you can bring your virtual presentation, charts, photos, and even infographics next to you on screen. Sounds like a sci-fi movie? No, it’s Prezi Video.

With Prezi Video, you can wow your audience during live SROI report presentations or record yourself with your data appearing next to you. Use these videos to bring awareness about your activities, explain details, and promote actions.

Video is the most impactful type of content, but there’s a common misconception that it’s complicated and expensive to produce. Not anymore. Learn more about Prezi Video and connect with your stakeholders on a whole new level.

Your mission is to change and improve the society, environment, conditions, and mindsets around us. Our mission is to help you deliver that message loud and clear with impactful, inspiring, and easy-to-make data visualizations. 

Interested in discovering how Infogram can enhance your team’s work? Join a brief Zoom session with our Infogram representative to explore key features, get answers to your questions, and understand how we can assist. It’s quick, informative, and just like a coffee break chat. Schedule your call now!