Annual reports
It is good governance best practice for all organisations to have an annual report of activities and annual financial statements, and to communicate these reports to stakeholders for transparency and accountability purposes.
Annual report of activities
For organisations which do not have the capacity to develop a full publicised report, WOSM has developed an Annual Report Template which can be used and uploaded on the Data Portal.
Annual financial statement
NSOs are asked to complete this standard Financial Statement Template of WOSM and then upload it as their Annual Financial Statement on the Data Portal. This standard template provides an opportunity to strengthen the financial reporting of organisations within WOSM through a consistent structure, bringing clarity and transparency to the information. It is also encouraged to link to any official financial statements, financial reports or audited financials of the organisation within the template provided.
Managing submission of annual reports of your NSO
To promote this good practice of making the annual reports available to stakeholders, all organisations are required to submit their annual report and financials as part of their annual reporting to WOSM.
The submission of these reports is to be done on the Data Portal.
Language of the reports
It is preferable to submit your NSO’s reports in one of the WOSM languages, English, French, Spanish or Arabic. This will support the ability of the World Scout Bureau to review and glean important information about your organisation from the reports.
However, reports produced by organisations in their local language will also be accepted.
Timeframe of the reports
The year for which your annual report and annual financial statement are being submitted is for the previous year. For example, if you are submitting the annual reporting in the year 2023, then your reports should be for 2022. We understand that each organisation has a different reporting cycle so please select the report that is the most relevant or which is ready to be uploaded within the timeframe of the current annual reporting cycle of WOSM.
Historical reports
If you have reports from previous years that you would like to upload, you are welcome to do so. Please note that if you previously submitted these to WOSM, we have them in our offline records but have only uploaded to the Members Portal Annual Reports and/or Annual Financial Statements as of 2018.
File format and size
The file formats which can be uploaded on the Data Portal are restricted. For annual reports of activities, the file format accepted is PDF. For annual financial statements, the file formats accepted are PDF or Microsoft Excel.
File size limit
The file size limit on the Data Portal is 10MB to ensure that we do not overload our system. An error message will appear at the bottom of the screen to remind you of the file size limit. If your file is too large, please consider compressing it or using the provided templates. If you continue to face challenges, please contact reporting@scout.org for support.
Uploading the reports
The annual report and financial statement are to be uploaded on a yearly basis as part of the NSO Annual Reporting. In the edit space of your NSO’s profile, the year of the report can be selected and the file uploaded. Only one file per report type and year can be uploaded.