Impact Report 2024 & Lessons On Leadership
How My Team Taught Me to Work Smarter, Not Harder
The Best Part Of Leading A Team
The best part of leading a team isn’t always about guiding the ship—it’s learning from the crew. I know, it sounds like the kind of motivational quote you'd find on a coffee mug, but hear me out. No matter the rank or title, everyone brings something unique to the table. This became crystal clear when I was working on The Wellbeing Project’s 2024 Impact Report.
Every year, my non-profit team pulls together an Impact Report, which is basically a year-in-review document showing how much good we’ve done. This isn’t just for the warm fuzzy feelings—it’s for transparency with our stakeholders, fellow changemakers, and funders. But let’s face it: in the whirlwind of constantly chasing new goals, it's easy to forget how much we’ve already accomplished.
Here’s the kicker: as a non-profit with a lean team, there’s no luxury of a huge marketing squad. It's me and our junior digital marketing coordinator, a.k.a. the Dynamic Duo. There’s no copywriter, no designer, no social media manager—just us. So instead of just promoting the Impact Report, we had to create it from scratch. Graphically speaking, that is.
Thankfully, the coordinating team worked wonders at pulling together the content: insights, data, learnings, and visuals, all packed into a 22-page Word doc with suggestions for charts, galleries, and infographics. All we had to do now was design the thing. Simple, right?
More Than Just Numbers
“All we had to do.” The last time I tried this, my strategy was to tackle it two pages at a time. Plus a handful of graphs. It took me nearly two weeks, with overtime to spare. So when I pitched the same approach to my collaborator, Adrian Griffin, he hit the brakes. “That’s not going to work for me. I’ll burn out,” he said.
“Okay, so how would you do it?” I asked, stunned.
Here’s the genius structure Adrian proposed:
Day 1: Find templates that fit the content. Is it a full-text page? A number-heavy page? A gallery? Choose accordingly, then tweak fonts and colors to match our branding.
Day 2: Empty the content from the report into the selected templates.
Day 3: Develop all the graphics.
Day 4: Select photos.
Day 5: Proofread.
I couldn’t believe it. “That’s brilliant!” It’s so simple, yet so effective. Break the massive task into bite-sized chunks. Adrian had just solved the puzzle in one fell swoop.
A New Approach: Breaking It Down
The Lesson: Teams Have the Answers, If You Listen
Despite my 10 years in marketing, the game is always changing. (I mean, there was a time when templates didn’t even exist—gasp!) With AI revolutionizing the way we work, it’s no surprise that the next-gen marketers like Adrian are out here optimizing workflows like pros.
Would I have figured out this breakdown on my own? Probably not. Adrian comes from a character design background, where everything is done in phases. His experience gave him the perfect method to manage workload and time. Without his input, I might still be pulling all-nighters, wondering why I wasn’t getting it right.
Moral of the story: Sometimes, the answers you need are right under your nose. All you have to do is listen to your team.