Donor reports that move: video for African NGOs

Every year, thousands of African NGOs, community-based organisations and social enterprises write reports for their donors. The reports take weeks to prepare, run to dozens of pages and contain real achievements: children in school, water points built, farmers trained, clinics supported. Then they are read by a programme officer, filed, and forgotten.

The same results, told in a two-minute video, can reach boards, individual supporters, partners, journalists and, most importantly, the communities the work is for.

What a results video should contain

• The problem, briefly, without exaggeration
• What you did, specifically
• What changed, with numbers you can stand behind
• One story, told with consent and dignity
• What is next, and how people can help

That structure works for an annual summary, a quarterly update or a single project.

From report to script

With Tari Studio, a communications officer can type /script with the length and a summary of the results. The director replies with timed scenes: what we see, who speaks and the words on screen. Every number, place and claim must come from your verified data and be checked by your M&E team before the video is made. AI can invent plausible-sounding figures; your report cannot afford that. Scripts are free. Scripts with /script.

Build from real material

Attach real photos from the field, with the permission of the people in them, and the Studio builds the video from them. Where you use generated scenes to illustrate a point, do not present them as documentary footage of your beneficiaries. How attachments work.

Numbers that mean something

"We reached 10,000 people" says less than "4,200 girls stayed in school for the full year, up from 3,100". Use outcomes, not just outputs, and show them clearly on screen. For an image summary of key figures, pick Ideogram 4 (clear text) for sharp lettering, and check every number.

Many audiences, one story

• Donors and boards: results, value for money, lessons learned
• Individual supporters: the story, the change, how to give
• Communities: what was done, what comes next, how to give feedback
• Partners and government: evidence, scale, collaboration

Change the language and emphasis for each. The Studio lets you set the language of speech and on-screen words to Kiswahili, English as Kenyans speak it, the mix, English (international), French or Chinese (Mandarin).

Honesty is the strategy

Donors increasingly reward organisations that report failures and lessons, not just successes. A short section on "what did not work and what we changed" builds more trust than a flawless highlights reel.

Share it widely

Publish to Facebook, Instagram and TikTok from the Studio, embed it in your newsletter, send it to donors with the PDF attached, and share it in community WhatsApp groups.

Turn your report into a video.