Good Art Non Profits to Put as Ur Beneficiary
Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today. — Robert McKee
The all-time communicators have always been storytellers. Think virtually great communicators that you know personally. Chances are, they're almost always telling stories. From bedtime stories to the "I accept a dream…" by Martin Luther King, stories take captivated our imagination and left usa craving for more.
Stories influence people, their emotions, behaviors, and actions. Stories find their way to man hearts and heads in a style that very few (if whatever) other communication methods tin.
We are hardwired to reply to stories. We tend to remember a good story mode longer than we remember a fact or figure.
Stories, told orally, were one of the first forms of human advice, and, in big part, were used to learn from one another's experiences. When we are hearing a fact or a figure, only our 'linguistic communication processing' part of the encephalon activates, merely when nosotros are listening to a story, many other parts of the brain light up likewise.
This is why stories can exist an incredible tool for fundraising, raising sensation, mobilizing volunteers, edifice trust, and and then much more than. This is especially the case for nonprofits, since they are in a way, in the 'business' of stories – irresolute the world one story at a fourth dimension. Nonprofits tend to have the "raw cloth" for powerful impact stories right at their fingertips—stories of perseverance, hope, and new beginnings, yet they rarely commit the resources to gather and utilize them.
Index
- Why is Storytelling Important for Nonprofits?
- Infographics – How to Tutorial on Nonprofit storytelling
- Nonprofit Storytelling Tips
- Nonprofit Storytelling Examples
- Nonprofit Storytelling Conferences
- Resources
Let'south accept a closer look at why they should:
Why is storytelling of import?
Stories assistance create context, they provide meaning and purpose and allow us to relate and empathize. They have the power to create and spread your nonprofit's charisma and touch while alluring more than donors.
Speaking of which, let this Donorbox webinar become beyond the basics of nonprofit storytelling, give you lot a thorough understanding of the topic in question, and assist you realize its ultimate potential.
1. Stories create context.
It may seem counterintuitive to first with a story when crafting a marketing strategy, merely, because stories help us relate and are memorable, they can ground your nonprofit's strategy. Storytelling is a valuable tool to help donors empathise the context in which you operate by seeing the challenges your beneficiaries (or your nonprofit) are facing.
For example, a nonprofit innovating in the category of food waste may use their latest technological advancements or the results of their plan to develop a fundraising pitch. However, donors respond ameliorate to a story about a depression-income family whose child can now beget instruction considering they have food on the tabular array. Stories help us see the context.
2. Stories move people to human action.
People make decisions on an emotional level. Logic and data are important. Still, it is fundamentally emotion, backed up by logic, that makes u.s. motility or change.
Stories create emotion in united states of america similar nothing else. In fact, without a story, in that location would be no emotions at all. Data tin can't cause emotion unless we can connect it to a story.
Storytelling, if done well, can easily encourage people to donate – which is what every nonprofit wants to do.
3. Stories create a connection.
Nosotros are hardwired to heed to stories. When we heed to stories, we are present and engaged. Whilst we fence, guess, and question facts, figures, behavior, and opinions – we don't practice the aforementioned with stories, at to the lowest degree not in the moment of listening.
Stories span people and create empathy. They brand us connect ane to some other. They work with a commonality – highlighting things we all share or can relate to.
This is incredibly meaningful to any organisation, and especially a nonprofit one – where emotions motivate charitable actions.
Infographics – How To Tutorial on Nonprofit Storytelling
Nonprofit Storytelling Tips
Here are the thirty+ best tips to take your storytelling to the adjacent level:
1. Be clear and succinct
Stories are captivating, simply there is a limit to homo attending. Make your story articulate and succinct and focus on why your arrangement exists, what it hopes to accomplish, who yous're doing it for, and why should the reader/viewer care.
ii. Stay away from facts and figures
This is not to say your story can't include any facts and figures, but you shouldn't make those the centerpiece of your story. Talking virtually how many tons of nutrient yous distributed or how many families you've helped is non a story. It can help a story, but it's non a story. A story needs to emotionally appoint and motion to activity. On the other hand, completely staying away from information tin can brand your story seem similar fiction.
Data comes next: "This is the story, and here are the numbers that dorsum it up."
3. Have a get-go, a eye, and an end
A part of what makes stories so enticing is their structure. Every good story has a start, a heart, and an cease. Brand sure your story, at the very least, has these three central components.
First: The protagonist is placed in a context and probable has a desire or goal.
Middle: In pursuing their goal, the protagonists faces challenges and takes actions.
End: The protagonist's life has changed in some mode. Their actions and experiences during the story have changed their situation.
Of course, this is the nigh basic structure and there are many modifications to information technology.
iv. Build characters
In addition to having a showtime, a middle, and an terminate, perhaps the just other essential chemical element to a story is a character. Characters give the audition something to place with, root for, or root against (in case of a villain).
5. Be specific
People relate to people (and donate to people). Make your story about a specific person (or family or creature) to assist people understand. Make it about the plight of a single person. People are more than likely to relate to a story of an abandoned canis familiaris than a statistic like "a one thousand thousand of dogs are abandoned annually." Aid your audience understand some of the individual, emotional stories that your organization can tell first, and then talk about thousands you helped.
half dozen. You can change your story
Sometimes, nonprofits inherit stories and they feel "obliged" to keep telling them. You can change your story at whatever betoken, as long as it'due south aligned to your mission.
7. Know your audition
Although stories are pretty universal and the about basic story construction generally works across cultures and backgrounds, there is notwithstanding a lot of value in investing fourth dimension to understand your audience.
Always ask yourself "Who am I talking to? And how am I going to tell them this story in a way that near resonates with them?" You can tell the same story in many dissimilar means. You lot can tell one story from many different perspectives, with different protagonists, in different formats.
eight. Have a organization in place
Good stories don't just always 'come' to you. You take to look for them. Have a organisation or people in place that volition systematically capture stories that you can later use. Assign someone to enquire others in the nonprofit about their stories on a regular basis, or create an online form such as a Google Form or Google Document that can be filled out by anyone.
Nosotros have a very useful resources to help brand this process easier for yous. Watch this Donorbox webinar in which social media marketing and digital storytelling expert, Julia Campbell, talks well-nigh the 6 types of stories your nonprofit should exist telling on social media!
9. Use stories everywhere
Collecting stories is but i part of the process. Using the stories consistently and diligently comes next. Stories tin exist used as a fundraising tool, as a recruitment tool, as a business evolution tool, then much more.
For example, you can tell stories to exhale life into your values and mission (e.g. what does "responsibleness" as a value even hateful)? You tin can tell stories about mistakes you made and how you learned from them – showing vulnerability.
10. Be genuine and accurate
People are increasingly aware of when a brand or an organization are appealing to them or trying to sell something to them. This can cause adverse reactions in which the individuals are put off and they don't donate or purchase equally a result. Ever share genuine stories in a way that is authentic to your nonprofit.
11. Stay away from the "salesy" language
Stories should be human, as much as possible. Using salesy, clinical, or too much of an industry-specific language can impede individuals from understanding, connecting, and empathizing – almost defeating the purpose of storytelling. It's important to make sure your story is easily understood and digested by readers.
For example, 1 accurate story of a human being in need is a lot more relatable than a demographic like "lower-income families."
12. Proceed the residue of light and dark
Nonprofits work on solving big earth issues, and telling the stories virtually those tin exist very dark. To balance the dark out, bring in some positivity (due east.chiliad. how your casher managed to overcome their issues or end up in a better place).
Focusing too much on the struggle tin can crusade unease and make information technology harder to relate, but as well many happy endings can make people call up you don't need their help. This is a very tricky residue to achieve.
13. Appoint all the senses
When telling a story, retrieve near: scent, taste, touch, sight, hearing. Whether those are conveyed via video, audio or in a written format – all of these can help your audition connect and engage.
14. Include a call to action
If you told a good story, your audition will exist motivated to give. At the cease of every story, place a call to activity. Brand certain this telephone call to action is relevant to the story you just told. In example the call to action is a donation button, brand sure the donation button leads the individual to donate to the person from the story or someone in a very similar situation.
xv. Employ your website
On your website, each page is a hazard to tell a story. Nonprofits often use their website to bear witness supporters the large motion-picture show – their mission. However, this can be strengthened past using this space to highlight detailed, individual stories likewise.
16. Use your web log
Compared to a website, blog posts provide more space to dive deep into the individual stories – giving your supporters a adventure to acquire more and read more than details. Having a proper content strategy on your nonprofit weblog that shares impactful stories besides matters a lot.
This also brings us to the concept called "Content Optimization". If the content is crisp, clear, and compelling, your supporters would understand and align with your story much amend.
Here'due south an in-depth guide on Content Optimization past Team Wordable.
17. Use your social media
Storytelling is vital in today's attending economy. Social media values stories. Social media tools are the perfect avenues to share stories and to get instant feedback, equally well equally to lead potential donors direct to your donation page.
Facebook and Instagram are good places to showtime. Have a set schedule for posting fresh content, invest in creating good visuals, and share stories in the format almost appropriate for the social media channel you're posting on.
18. Use real-time storytelling
Planning, gathering, and crafting well-told stories is crucial to your storytelling strategy. Nevertheless, today'south donors crave authentic human connection. To do this, consider telling real-time stories on Snapchat, Instagram Stories, and Instagram and Facebook alive. This allows for in-the-moment interest and date which builds a sense of connection and trust.
19. Detect fresh perspectives
Storytelling using your "organization's voice" can be powerful. However, finding new and fresh perspectives tin be even more powerful. Take the casher tell the story of their life through their eyes – no one knows it meliorate. Alternatively, consider having an employee, a contributor or a volunteer share their perspectives.
20. Use visuals
Visual storytelling has exploded over the by couple of years. According to a report conducted past SimplyMeasured, videos are shared 12 times more often than links and text posts combined, and photos are liked twice as often as text updates.
Consider visual mediums such every bit videos, photography, infographics, and fifty-fifty cartoons or drawings to stand up out in a ocean of text. If you're operating on a smaller budget, this doesn't accept to mean producing super loftier-quality videos with a videographer. Videos shot on phones can exist just as, if not more, authentic. Naturally, knowledgeable video storytellers can aid you lot frame the story and make your organization expect professional person, and create a video that you tin can use for years to come. Simply producing a great video doesn't always mean you lot're telling a great story.
21. Be mindful of patronizing
In their spirit of goodwill and in their expertise, nonprofits often autumn into the trap of speaking too much in the name of their constituents. Allow the people yous help to have a face, a name, and speak for themselves and nigh themselves. Utilize quotes, interviews, and testimonials to accomplish this.
22. Grab attending
Your story has to captivate the reader's/viewer's attention from the very start. Regardless of how good the story is at its core, our attention span is short – and then brand sure to get to the message pretty fast. Need inspiration? Browse Poynter'southward online gallery oflaurels-winning leads.
23. Cultivate a storytelling organizational culture
Even with a arrangement in identify, a storytelling organizational culture won't just "appear" just because one or few staff members are passionate about it. Storytelling needs to become embedded into the very material of your nonprofit'due south organizational civilization (from executives to volunteers).
Make sure all of your staff, lath and volunteers understand how and why stories are used in fundraising. Identifying and collecting great stories to apply should autumn under everyone's job description.
24. Brand stories an integral part of every meeting
This is another way you can ensure storytelling becomes part of your nonprofit's organizational culture. Outset out a staff or lath meeting with xv minutes of people sharing client, staff or donor stories they witnessed from the previous calendar week.
25. Choose messages
Whenever you write/record a story, make certain you're articulate on the message you lot want to transport. A key bulletin is the main signal you want your audition to accept away from your story. For example, if your organisation runs a special fundraising campaign in the fall for period supplies for girls in Kenya, an example of a key message for this might be: "Menses supplies provide girls with opportunities to attend schoolhouse and amend their chances of a better future."
26. Plan your storytelling
Although yous will capture some stories spontaneously and they will make it at your doors unexpectedly, information technology'southward still important to plan your storytelling. Create a document of important moments and events throughout the year (e.grand. Christmas or Women's Twenty-four hour period), then think about what central messages you desire to share throughout the twelvemonth. These key story letters should highlight the opportunities to reinforce your arrangement'south messaging. Next, plan what kind of stories tin convey those messages and so plan how you will collect them.
27. Make your audition feel emotions
It'southward essential that you brand your audience feel when reading or hearing your story. Whether they feel sadness, joy, anger, hope, pride – it doesn't affair. What matters most is that your story evokes emotions. Emotions evoke action. "XY Nonprofit celebrating 50 years of existence and winning xx awards" doesn't evoke emotion. Protagonists, existent people, do. Hither's a nifty instance of making the audition feel emotion.
28. Go on the stories relevant
Once you embark on the journey of becoming a storytelling organization, you might start gathering a very large number of stories. However, it's withal of import to just share the relevant ones. Cull stories that best reflect your organization's mission.
29. Communicate donor bear upon
Y'all can combine storytelling with touch reporting. Tell stories that directly showcase the impact your nonprofit'due south had and straight highlight how the donor'due south contribution was used. This not only helps retain donors only attracts new ones – since they get to see how their souvenir was/will be used.
30. Get the word out
You've planned your storytelling, you worked difficult on creating a storytelling civilisation, and you gathered amazing stories in various shapes and forms. Now is the fourth dimension to distribute them! Discuss distribution early. At the beginning of a projection, appraise which avails you've been using and how you lot can add to them in gild to achieve your goals. Combine several multimedia storytelling approaches, and your story gets stronger!
Here are a few great places you lot may want to share content:
- Medium
- YouTube
- Google Plus
- Quora
- Vimeo
31. Rails and evaluate
When sharing stories, runway their success: the number of clicks, likes, favorites, retweets, claps, vote ups – any the central performance indicators are for the channel y'all're using. Evaluate your efforts, and re-program your marketing strategy accordingly. What worked for your audience? Video or text? Images or lives? Twitter or Pinterest? Track, evaluate, conform course.
Nonprofit Storytelling Examples
ane.Clemency: H2o
Clemency: Water are masters at nonprofit storytelling. They are counted as one of the superlative nonprofits fighting the global water crisis. They share stories all the time: on their website, on their social media, through photos and videos. If you ringlet downward their Stories page, you'll meet that they're not just rehashing the aforementioned story over and over. They effort to capture equally many angles of touch on as possible and more often than not maintain an upbeat, positive tone through all of their narratives.
They post on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and Pinterest, sharing very visual content displaying by and large their beneficiaries. Their branding is clean, vibrant, minimal, and they are vocal about their values – alluring a lot of millennials.
Knowing it's hard for people in the US to relate to someone in Ethiopia, they created a page called "Someone Like You," y'all tin enter your age and a little about your interests and values, and you'll virtually run across someone like from Adi Etot.
This is a artistic way to utilize storytelling to inspire giving.
2. Kiva
In 2005, its outset year, Kiva, one of the world'due south start person-to-person micro-lending enterprises, distributed more than $500,000 to entrepreneurs. Since Kiva's inception, more than than 631,345 people have loaned over $111 million.
Kiva has accomplished this success due to, amidst other things, storytelling.
From the founding of Kiva, Kiva'south goal was to engage people by making them feel a positive emotional connexion, offering an alternative to what the previous generation had seen growing upwardly—ads to alleviate poverty where "the message was to feel bad for these people and then to act."
3. Pencils of Promise
Pencils of Hope regularly uses storytelling every bit a fundraising tool. However, they have recently started using an interesting approach to storytelling: virtual reality.
Through the utilize of Oculus Gear VR headsets, the VR picture show transported guests to a Pop classroom in rural Ghana, showing the transformational effect instruction tin have on a customs.
In 2015, they raised over $1.9M from supporters during the dark. Information technology'due south important to annotation this was a celebrity-studded gala.
iv. I Girl
Here'south the power of stories, done past One Girl. Detect your reaction.
Are you moved more by: "According to UNICEF, approximately 35% of girls driblet out of school because of early marriage and 23% exercise so because of early on pregnancy (UNICEF, 2015)"
Or This video?
Although "A" portrays the overall land of obstacles to girls education in Uganda amend, B tugs on our heartstrings. We are able to empathize and experience for the individuals we run into and hear. Nosotros run across their faces, nosotros come across a glimpse of their lives and their struggles, and we are moved to human activity.
2. San Francisco Marin Food Bank
Instead of simply saying: "we provide food for hundreds of families" – making those families faceless and nameless – SF Marin Food Banking concern pulls stories from their beneficiaries and volunteers and demonstrate their impact.
They bring to life a character, like Heather, helping u.s. chronicle and envision her life:
"Heather wakes up before dawn each forenoon so that she tin get to piece of work stocking processed machines at 5 am. She puts in a 2-hour shift, and so returns home, so her fiancé tin leave for work. He has two jobs as a melt and works six days a week, twelve hours per day…"
3. Habitat for Humanity
""I saw 30 years of a life gone," Lynn says of the August 2017 night when Hurricane Harvey swamped her Habitat house with more than 5 feet of h2o."
Habitat for Humanity dedicated an unabridged folio on their website to stories of people they helped, volunteers, and staff.
They utilise powerful visuals and storytelling to demonstrate the large impact they have on people's lives.
Nonprofit Storytelling Conferences to Nourish
If you want to make storytelling an integral part of your nonprofit'due south marketing strategy, and you'd love to larn more, here are iii nonprofit conferences you tin attend this year:
i. Nonprofit Storytelling Conferences
Where: Orlando, FL
When: October xv-17, 2018
What: The Nonprofit Storytelling Conference focuses on storytelling. Numbers and statistics won't exercise the flim-flam when information technology comes to fundraising. People answer to stories of the existent-life impact of the good piece of work that your nonprofit is doing. Larn the ins and outs of good storytelling and what motivate others to give and get involved in your cause. It offers inspiration on how to tell stories effectively and how to apply them across multiple channels.
Audience size: TBA
Audience profile: Nonprofit professionals focusing on donor advice and fundraising
Cost:
$495 – Video Only
$695 – Ticket Only
$845 – Ticket and Video
2. Futurity of Storytelling Summit
Where: New York, NY
When: October iii-4, 2018
What: At the Future of Storytelling Pinnacle, you lot'll get to network with all kinds of creators and influencers in a wide variety of industries. Unlike a traditional conference, the Pinnacle features intimate, speaker-led roundtables; easily-on workshops; and immersive exhibitions. The summit is focused on how exploring how storytelling is evolving in the digital age.
Audience size: 500
Audience profile: Professionals from the worlds of media, technology, and communications
Price:
$ii,500 – Regular Pass
$2,250 – Early on Bird
$4,000 – VIP
iii. Forward 2018
Where: Boston, MA
When: June 14, 2018
What: At Forward 2018, you'll explore the software tools and techniques that make story-axial marketers successful. Y'all'll get to dive into processes, content optimization, functioning measurement, ROI, and more.
Audition size: 500
Audience contour: TBA
Price:
$649 – Solar day 1 Merely (Forward)
$649 – Day two Only (Storynomics)
$1,198 – Both Days
Resources – Learn More
one. Wired for Story
Wired for Story: The Writer'south Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very Get-go Sentence offers a lot of practical tips to make your storytelling shine.
It focuses on how to write meliorate and is an excellent resource if you want to larn how to write compelling stories – that tin subsequently interpret to video.
2. The Storytelling Beast: How Stories Make Us Man
The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make U.s.a. Human is a smashing i to overturn myths about storytelling, inspire you lot to tell stories.
It likewise draws on the latest research in neuroscience, psychology, and evolutionary biological science.
3. Stories Worth Telling
Meyer Foundation's Stories Worth Telling hopes to be a useful resource for nonprofit leaders and their organizations.
It looks at v essential building blocks of compelling stories, strategic story cycle, as well equally at the culture of storytelling and the futurity of storytelling.
4. Storytelling for Skilful
Storytelling for Good connects you to a suite of tools and a growing customs that can help you leverage the power of narrative to increase reach, resources, and impact for your nonprofit.
If you're looking for a place offering many different opportunities and ways to leverage storytelling as role of your nonprofit'due south social change work, explore the lessons and articles on their site.
5. How to Tell a World-Changing Story
Get Storied released a ten-office video series on how to become beyond the hero-victim-villain story.
This series besides tackles re-imagining how to communicate your world-irresolute idea, talking about taboo subjects, leveraging personal stories in the alter-making procedure, and learning techniques to tell a story that transcends the status quo.
Conclusion
Donors present expect more from nonprofits. They're constantly bombarded by information, including fundraising appeals. They've seen it all.
The best thing you can do for your nonprofit is to create great stories and share them. Storytelling is what we've been doing for thousands and thousands of years, from the first story written with a stick in the mud to the Instagram story you lot shared half an hr ago.
Content marketing and storytelling, although sometimes intimidating, are essentially the same as the novel on your nightstand or a painting done by your child. They're all stories, told in different ways and in unlike forms.
Embrace the power of storytelling and see where it takes your nonprofit. Always keep your nonprofit's mission in mind to help guide you.
The fine art of your story will draw your audience into your world. And the science of storytelling will aid y'all fundraise.
Yous will constantly need new stories to share on your social media, in your fundraising letters, and in your almanac reports. You volition need to change the civilisation of your organisation. Therefore, storytelling is not a goal to accomplish, information technology'south an ongoing procedure.
But information technology is i that volition be very worth information technology, transforming your nonprofit forth the mode.
Source: https://donorbox.org/nonprofit-blog/nonprofit-storytelling-guide
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