When delivery matters: completing The National Lottery Community Fund’s Annual Report
Client
The National Lottery Community Fund
Team
Introduction
Think was brought in to complete and deliver The National Lottery Community Fund’s 2024-25 Annual Report and Accounts after the project was already underway. The work involved reviewing and completing the UK report, delivering accessibility compliance, producing the Welsh-language version and managing a short-run printed edition.
Not every project starts with a signed contract.
When The National Lottery Community Fund was looking for a partner to produce its 2024-25 Annual Report and Accounts, Think submitted a comprehensive proposal covering design, artwork, accessibility, Welsh-language production, quality assurance, project governance and final delivery.
Ultimately, the work was awarded elsewhere.
But a few months later, the Fund got back in touch.
The challenge
The Annual Report and Accounts is one of the Fund’s most important corporate publications. As a statutory document, it brings together organisational performance, governance and financial reporting, with extensive review and sign-off requirements involving senior leadership, auditors and the National Audit Office.
The project wasn’t simply about producing a report.
It required the management of a technically complex document containing detailed financial information, governance content, tables, charts and data visualisations, alongside strict accessibility standards and multiple final outputs.
As publication deadlines approached, additional support was required to prepare the report for publication and ensure it met the accessibility standards needed for digital distribution. Internal stakeholders were already asking when the final accessible version would be available online and timings had become critical.
Think was asked to step in and help deliver the project.
Picking up a live project
Joining a project midway through presents a very different challenge from starting with a blank page.
Rather than developing the report from scratch, we inherited an existing set of files and a live publication schedule. Before any work could begin, we needed to understand what had already been completed, assess the quality and structure of the documents and identify the most efficient route to delivery.
This wasn’t a redesign exercise.
It was a recovery and completion project requiring technical expertise, meticulous attention to detail and the ability to work quickly within an established framework.
Completing the UK report and delivering accessibility compliance
Although the report had already been designed, the work was far from finished.
Before the document could be published, every page of the English-language report needed to be reviewed, checked and prepared for accessibility compliance. This wasn’t simply a case of adding tags to an existing PDF. We undertook a detailed audit of the artwork, reviewing page structure, paragraph styles, navigation, artwork positioning, consistency of layouts and document hierarchy across more than 150 pages.
Accessibility was a critical requirement. As a public body, The National Lottery Community Fund needed a report that met demanding digital accessibility standards and could be confidently published online. The report needed to be fully navigable, compatible with assistive technologies and structured in a way that met recognised accessibility requirements.
Working through the report page by page, we corrected inconsistencies, strengthened document structure and implemented the technical requirements needed to produce a fully accessible publication. Only once the English report had been thoroughly reviewed and prepared could the final accessibility checks and testing be completed.
With the UK report delivered, we then produced the full Welsh-language version, ensuring consistency across both editions while maintaining the same rigorous standards of quality, usability and accessibility. As part of the final delivery phase, we also prepared artwork for a short-run printed edition and managed the production process. This required a separate production workflow, artwork preparation and print management expertise to ensure the final printed reports met the same standards of accuracy, consistency and quality as the digital versions.
The result was a complex statutory publication that was not only delivered to deadline but was also accessible, compliant and fit for a diverse audience, including users relying on assistive technologies.
The outcome
Think helped ensure the successful delivery of the Fund’s 2024-25 Annual Report and Accounts by reviewing and completing the UK report, delivering accessibility compliance, producing the Welsh-language version and managing the artwork and production of a short-run printed edition.
Despite joining the project late in the process, we were able to provide the structure, expertise and delivery capability needed to bring a complex statutory publication across the finish line.
The finished reports met the required publication standards, maintained consistency across print and digital formats, and ensured the Fund could confidently deliver an accessible experience for all users while producing high-quality printed copies for key stakeholders.
More than design
Complex projects aren’t defined by how smoothly they start. They’re defined by how successfully they finish.
This project demonstrated that when delivery, compliance and reputation are on the line, experience, process and resilience become every bit as important as creative execution.
The National Lottery Community Fund didn’t need a new design concept. They needed a partner who could step into a live, high-profile project, take ownership of the challenges, deliver accessibility compliance, produce multilingual versions, manage print production and see the project through to completion.
That’s exactly what Think delivered.
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