A good diaspora activity report is not just the financial statement: a general assembly votes trust, and trust feeds on demonstrated value. Structure it in five blocks — network evolution, value acts produced, transparent financials, highlights, orientations. Present figures compared to the previous year (a "+18% vs N-1" is worth ten raw figures) and broken down by country, never named data without consent. On production: the report is painful when data sleeps in a spreadsheet; when the community lives on a single platform, a dashboard aggregates network value, churn risk by country and the company network, and exports to a presentation-ready PDF — the report becomes a review, not a reconstruction.
Why the activity report is a political act, not a chore
The general assembly is the one moment of the year when the whole diaspora looks in the same direction — and the activity report is what it looks at. Treating it as a box to tick wastes the single most important date in the association's life.
Concretely, three audiences read this report, and none looks for the same thing. Members want to know whether their dues serve a purpose and whether the network brought them value this year — otherwise they don't renew. The outgoing board is playing its re-election: the report is its record, and a vague record votes badly. External partners — a local authority in the country of origin, an institution, a funder, a patron — decide on this document whether to support the structure: for them, the report is a light due diligence. One text must therefore speak to these three audiences, which means clearly separating facts, figures and intentions.
On the calendar side, recall the rule that creates the urgency: a French nonprofit whose fiscal year closes on December 31 generally holds its annual general assembly within six months — that is, before the end of June. That is why the topic resurfaces every spring — and why a system that produces the report continuously beats a last-minute scramble.
What should an activity report contain? The five-block structure
Five blocks, in this order: network evolution, value acts produced, financials, highlights, and orientations. This frame works for a diaspora of 200 as well as 5,000 members.
1. Network evolution. How many members, in how many countries, with what momentum over the year: new arrivals, reactivated members, and — the figure too often hidden — members lost or churned. A diaspora that honestly presents its departures gains credibility; one that shows only gross growth raises the suspicion of seasoned partners. To frame this baseline census, see how to map your diaspora.
2. Value acts produced. This is the heart, and most often the blind spot. How many introductions, concrete instances of mutual aid, events organized and attendees, projects funded back home, job offers shared? A network's value is not measured by its size but by what it circulates. A network of 800 members that generated 120 useful introductions beats a file of 3,000 dormant contacts.
3. Transparent financials. Dues collected, funds mobilized (solidarity fund, projects), breakdown of spending. On the mechanics of collecting worldwide, see collecting diaspora dues from abroad. Transparency here is not optional: it is what lets a discharge vote pass without tension.
4. Highlights. Three to five high points of the year, told briefly, with a photo or a figure. This is the "story" part that creates desire — it balances the dryness of tables.
5. Orientations for the next term. Two or three priorities, quantified and dated. A general assembly re-elects a board not on its past alone, but on a credible course.
The figures that speak to a general assembly (and those that bore it)
A figure compared to the previous year is worth ten raw figures. "We have 1,240 members" teaches nothing; "+18% in value acts versus last year, on a stable base" tells a trajectory — and a trajectory gets voted.
Four families of indicators carry a diaspora report, provided you present them as evolution, not as a frozen snapshot:
- Network value, year vs N-1. The aggregate of useful acts produced by the community over the year, compared to the previous one. It answers the only real question a member has: "what is my membership for?".
- Churn risk, by country. Distinguishing never-connected members (poorly onboarded) from dormant ones (once active, silent for over six months) — and seeing which countries the drop-off concentrates in. That turns an observation ("we're losing people") into an action plan ("re-engage the community in Belgium before the new season").
- The company and city network. Where your members work, in which companies, in which cities: the professional map of the diaspora is an asset few networks know how to show — and it is precisely what impresses an institutional partner.
- The decision-makers in the network. How many executives, leaders, people positioned to open doors? A network is worth not only its headcount, but the bridges it makes possible.
Conversely, what bores a general assembly: raw figures without a reference point, percentages without a base, ten-series charts, and vanity metrics (number of "views", "likes") that say nothing about real value. To go further on choosing indicators, the article 7 network KPIs transfers largely from an alumni network to a diaspora.
Presenting to partners, local authorities and funders: what changes
A funder does not read the report like a member: they look for proof of a real, active, structured network, not an emotional narrative. Three adjustments make your report "bankable".
First, geographic distribution. A local authority in the country of origin wants to see how many of its nationals your network actually reaches, and where they are. A map and a table by country beat any speech. Then, compared trajectory: a funder funds momentum, not a state. Show the evolution over one, two, three years if you have it. Finally, delivery capacity: prove you can carry projects through (a project funded and delivered last year beats every "ongoing" project in the world). The seven classic pitfalls of a poorly structured diaspora — the ones a partner spots instantly — are summarized in the 7 pitfalls of a diaspora platform.
From spreadsheet to dashboard: producing the report without losing your nights
The activity report is painful when data is scattered across a spreadsheet on the treasurer's computer, an inbox and three WhatsApp groups. It becomes simple when the community lives on a single platform: the figures already exist, all that's left is to review them.
That is exactly the role of Terrilink's Network reporting module. Instead of reconstructing a year of activity by hand, you open a dashboard that aggregates, for the term:
- the network value of the year compared to N-1, exportable to a presentation-ready PDF for the general assembly or a partner;
- churn risk by country, distinguishing never-connected members from dormant ones;
- the company and city network where your members work;
- the decision-makers present in the community, spotted from their job title;
- a natural-language summary (Copilot) built on a deterministic set of figures — meaning no invented statistic: the AI rephrases real figures, it does not make them up.
The gain is not cosmetic: it shifts the report from an end-of-term chore to a continuous read. And it removes the main source of error — the manual re-keying of figures no member can verify.
The frame: data, GDPR and transparency in a public report
An activity report presents aggregates, not individuals. Naming a member — a donation received, aid granted, a personal situation — without explicit consent exposes you both to a GDPR breach and a lasting internal conflict.
The sound rule has three points. Aggregate by default: counts, distributions, global amounts, never a named list in a distributed document. Name only with consent: an individual thank-you, a photo, a testimonial are published with the person's agreement. Restrict detailed data to the roles that need it (treasurer, board), not the whole assembly. These principles, and their concrete translation for a community spread across several countries, are detailed in the GDPR guide for diaspora platforms. On the general nonprofit frame (bylaws, accounting, discharge), the context covered in nonprofit status (loi 1901) transfers largely to a diaspora.