How To Craft an Annual Benefit Report for Your Benefit Corporation

In becoming a benefit corporation, you commit to producing an annual benefit report communicating how you met your triple bottom line in the preceding year. Here are some tips to make crafting that report easier.

One of the three requirements in becoming a benefit corporation is to create and distribute an annual benefit report to your stakeholders.

The State of Oregon’s statute regarding benefit companies states that the report must:

• Identify the business’s actions and methods used to provide a general or specific public benefit

• Identify any circumstances that hindered or prevented a benefit, and

• Identify how well the benefit company met or exceeded the third party standard

Structuring Your Annual Benefit Report

We use a simple structure for our clients in developing and creating their annual Benefit Report. You can do the same.

• Introduction describing your business including when it became a certified benefit company and who the third-party certifier is

• Mission or Manifesto describing what your company stands for, what it believes in and what practices it follows

• Summary Review of Year describing highlights of public benefit efforts for the year

• Key Metrics providing data points meeting third-party standards regarding people, planet and profit

• Coming Year describing areas to focus and improve upon

• Closing providing a quick re-cap of the efforts for the year

Writing Your Annual Benefit Report

Demonstrate authentic commitment to the principles of Benefit Corporations. Share real efforts to make an impact on people and planet. Don't just use words but describe real actions. For example, you can talk about community engagement, demonstrating empathy, showing compassion, improving the environment, and promoting social justice.  

Communicate simply by keeping your audience in mind. If you're like most businesses, you have internal and external stakeholders. This includes employees, customers, prospects and community members.

Here are some tips to keep clarity in your writing:

• Your sentences should be short and simple (10 - 11 words or shorter is best).

• Your language needs to be jargon-free, e.g. stay away from industry terms.

• Your paragraphs should just be 3-4 sentences long for easier reading and scanning.

Graphics should be the same. Do not use complicated or complex visuals. Make sure your illustration or image is clear and easy-to-understand. Resist all other embellishment.

If you use your company branding for your report (we recommend it), just make sure it's used sparingly. It's another way to keep your report "simple" and clear.

You probably just need your logo in a couple of well-placed locations in your document or webpage.

~benefitcorporationsforgood.com~