When a board packet should show a data gap
After a monsoon season disrupted field visits for a coastal client, their draft board packet quietly connected the dots across empty months. It looked tidy. It also implied continuity the monitors never recorded.
We replaced the smooth line with a break, annotated “field access limited — June to August,” and moved speculation into a short prose note. Trustees asked better questions about contingency funding instead of debating whether the curve looked “optimistic.”
Honesty in donor reporting visuals is not a mood; it is a layout decision. Gaps belong in the chart, not only in a footnote nobody reads.