In a world in which people need to absorb information quickly, nonprofits can take advantage of smart design to attract their audiences. Infographics are visual tools for presenting complex information or data in an easily digestible way. They can help create awareness, explain your programs, show impact, and engage your donors and other constituents in memorable ways. Infographics are especially good online marketing and social media tools — they can be easily viewed, distributed, and shared. Because you have the ability to link your infographic to a website, you can use these visuals to generate more inbound traffic to your organization’s site.
Below are 5 tips that nonprofits can use to turn their information into effective infographics.
1. Use Maps
Use maps to display information that has a geographic basis. Here, we have used a map to show the number of children served by an advocacy organization. Displaying the information in this way allows people to quickly find patterns in the data, such as what area serves the most children, where the organization has the most impact, etc.
2. Use Flowcharts for Systems & Processes
Use a visual flowchart to breakdown a system or a process for your audience. Highlight the steps with interesting visuals that will provide a quick summary of the content, and generate enough interest for the viewer to want to read the accompanying text. Here, we have illustrated the process of using project management software for the clients of a contractor.
3. Show Impact with Numbers
Using numbers will help illustrate your impact to an audience in a very clear and quantifiable way. Make the numbers themselves bigger than the surrounding text so they will stand out and invite further reading. Pair numbers with illustrations and/or photos for added visual interest.
4. Present Data in Interesting Ways
Use a variety of formats to display your information — traditional pie charts and bar graphs are good, but try to think of other more interesting ways to break down your data. Below, the data for “Parent Evaluations of Children’s Progress” would have made a dull bar graph since the percentages are very similar. So instead, we illustrated the evaluations, highlighting the percentages individually.
5. Entertain to Engage
Infographics can be an opportunity to have fun — and to better engage your audience and entice them to take action. Below, instead of simply listing an organization’s volunteer opportunity for teens, we created a flowchart asking them questions about their interests and pointing them to specific volunteer opportunities.
