Hating statistics and other cold hard facts, and loving stories instead, is very popular in our field right now. I’m mostly on that bandwagon too.

But what if you could use a good statistic to help tell your story?

I saw this Austim Speaks PSA with Toni Braxton on TV recently, and it caught my attention, even before I realized it was for a nonprofit.

The Toni Braxton ad is from 2009. Some newer versions feature NASCAR driver Jamie McMurray and fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger and they follow the same basic “the odds of . . .” script. While there is some criticism of the ads in the autism community, I think they do a good job of conveying how common autism is.

The basic stat in all of the ads is that the odds of having a child diagnosed with autism are 1 in 110.  In other words, this is really pretty common. But just saying, “Hey, autism is common, so you better learn about it” isn’t very compelling.

To drive home how common it is, the ads juxtapose the “1 in 110″  against much rarer events (the chance of being discovered, or winning a NASCAR race) as they tell a person’s life story. The life story and the odds of other events within that story are what put the autism statistic in a context that is now much more interesting and memorable. Of course, the star power of those featured in ads helps too, because that’s what really sucks us into the commercial — seeing how the life story of these people we already know is unfolding, and then landing on that much more common event of having a child with autism.

Now that we understand how common it is, Austim Speaks hopes we will want to learn about the early signs of autism, which is the call to action of each video.

Where have you seen statistics and other cold hard facts work in nonprofit marketing?

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Beth Ann Spiegel

In this guest post, Beth Ann Spiegel shares a great example of what can happen when you really listen to your supporters and get to know your target audiences better.   ~Kivi

Guest Post by Beth Ann Spiegel, Fund Development and Communications Associate of The Arc of Atlantic County

As nonprofit marketers, we can all probably relate to the situation Alice finds herself in during the first two chapters of Alice in Wonderland. While in hot pursuit of the white rabbit (our organizational goal), we come across a room filled with doors of various sizes (our marketing goals).  If we had the right key, the right height, the right sized lock (the right strategies and tactics for reaching our goal) we could get through.

We try and try, but every combination we come up with leads us to a dead end (not getting the results we were hoping for). Finally, we think we’ve found the magic formula for getting through the door and on our merry way, but we’re swept away in a saltwater sea.  We come across a mouse (our target audience) that clearly knows how to get to dry land, but in our desperate attempt to make a connection with the mouse so he can help us get to shore, we forget who we’re talking to and tell him a story about our cat!

No mouse wants to hear about his mortal enemy, so he swims away.  When we finally realize who we’re talking to and vow not to speak of cats again, he feels comfortable enough to engage with us and safely leads us to shore and on track toward reaching our goal.

Since I began working as the communications associate for The Arc six years ago, my Alice in Wonderland dilemma has been our annual Step Up for The Arc Walk.  This is the typical peer-to-peer fundraising event designed to unite passionate supporters and constituents of your organization in a way that builds awareness and raises funds to support programs.

But every year, I feel like I took too much of the ‘Drink Me’ potion or not enough of the ‘Eat Me’ cake and fall short of hitting our goal of increasing participation and revenue from the event.  No matter what, we can’t break past that 200 participant/$20,000 mark in any significant way.  We’ve introduced new incentives, contests, attractions and pretty brochures to encourage participation, but none of these tactics seemed to work.

Despite serving more than 700 people and impacting even thousands more family members of those individuals across our county, we couldn’t seem to reach the people we needed most.  The walk-a-thon was missing the kind of momentum we see other ‘a-thons’ generate, but we just couldn’t figure out why.

It finally dawned on me this year, thanks to the active engagement of two families in particular, that one big reason we fail to attract families of people we support is that we haven’t built the type of relationships that would inspire them to get involved.

It wasn’t that they didn’t care about The Arc and what we did for them and their loved one. It all boiled down to our lack of attention to getting to know the families we were trying to attract, what their perception of The Arc is, and what really motivates them to participate.

Family #1: One of our most beloved and engaged service recipients who helped out at the walk every year passed away this past January. Dina’s mom Mary Ann had a strong desire to give back to The Arc, so she called me to do some brainstorming. After we tossed around a few ideas, she agreed that forming a walk-a-thon team in memory of Dina would be the best way to remember her and make a difference.

It was astounding to see the kind of dedication and interest that her mom had now that Dina was gone.  Through the loss of her daughter, she had a greater sense of urgency to make a difference in the agency that helped her child have such an awesome life.  I remained in contact with Mary Ann regularly in the months leading up to the event, making sure I was there for her for all of her questions.

By the day of the walk, their team grew to nearly 60 people – all wearing handmade shirts with a photo of themselves with Dina on the front – and raised nearly $6,000!  This was by far the biggest team we’ve ever had and the most touching example of support for someone we served. They’re already getting amped up for next year’s walk and are plotting their strategy for raising a lot more money.

But this wouldn’t have happened without two key ingredients: 1) A strong emotional connection the family had to The Arc and how our services helped their loved one, and 2) A strong relationship between the mother and key members of The Arc staff.

Family #2: About four years ago, our CEO approached Lisa, the mother of a teen age girl who had been receiving a few hours of help from The Arc each month in the form of in-home respite care since she was a little girl.  She also happens to be a server at the local deli where our CEO eats lunch regularly, so they’ve had a chance to get to know one another.

She asked Lisa why she didn’t enroll her daughter in more of our programs, especially our five-hour Saturday Program designed to give parents a break and kids a fun, nurturing environment to socialize and learn.  Lisa didn’t think her daughter’s behavior would make her a good fit for that program, which our CEO wanted to hear nothing of – “at least give it a shot”, she said. So she did, and as our CEO suspected, it was the perfect match! Lisa’s daughter now not only attends the weekly kids program, she also attends a bi-weekly program for teens and has had made so many friends.  This has helped her daughter and her family tremendously, and the mom is not shy about expressing it.

When it came time to develop a new agency video, we asked Lisa if she’d give a testimonial in the video. She agreed, and spoke very sincerely about how she wishes more families could benefit from our services.  Our relationship with Lisa evolved even further when it came time for her daughter to attend Step Up for The Arc last year, as the Saturday program children and their staff always do.  While most of the parents who send their children to the walk make a modest contribution, Lisa didn’t hesitate to set up an online fundraising page and set her goals high.

She and her daughter beat that goal, and came into this year’s event even more energized. She offered to provide her signature on our cover letter that accompanied our event mailer inviting people to participate.  She also set her goal even higher, and beat that too! Lisa became our top individual fundraiser, bringing in more than $2,500 from more than 60 people.

Again, just like with Dina’s mom, we were able to successfully engage Lisa in the event because of her strong emotional connection to The Arc and its programs, coupled with the development of a natural relationship between our key staff and Lisa over the years.

What about the results of this October’s walk-a-thon? Well, we’re still hovering around the 200/$20,000 numbers (which we were actually thrilled about because our walk happened the day of a Nor’easter!) but we gained a huge amount of insight into what families we support truly respond to thanks to our experiences with Lisa and Mary Ann.  The relationships we built with both of them made it a win-win situation for them and for us.  They had a desire help us reach our goal and help other families have the services and supports they appreciate, and we provided them with the support they needed to make it easy to ‘step up for The Arc’.

And what about Alice and the White Rabbit? Well, I know this Alice feels a lot better about her ability to find the right keys to opening the doors of engagement that will lead us closer to that white rabbit – the ability to serve more people with developmental disabilities and their families. Our goal for next year’s event is to increase family participation by 20%, but it’s also to stop ‘talking to mice about cats’ and really get to know the families we support and give them the tools they need to make the difference we know so many of them want to make.

Beth Ann Spiegel is the Fund Development & Communications Associate for The Arc of Atlantic County, based just 10 minutes away from Atlantic City, NJ. The Arc of Atlantic County is one of more than 700 state and local chapters of The Arc across the country that work on behalf of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities over the course of their lifetimes through advocacy, education and direct supports.

In March, Beth Ann and her Arc colleagues across the country helped launch a new brand identity for The Arc, uniting chapters under one clear, dynamic logo with a tagline that invites people with developmental disabilities, donors, volunteers, families and more to ‘Achieve with us’.  She hopes you’ll follow the great achievements of The Arc and the people they support by ‘Liking’ them on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/ArcAtlantic) and subscribing to their blog (http://arcatlantic.wordpress.com/).

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Allison Monnell

This guest post by Allison Monnell demonstrates not only the power of storytelling in nonprofit communications, but just how beneficial it can be to your nonprofit when you integrate a culture of story sharing into your everyday work, as the Chemung ARC has done with its Stringer Success Stories. Allison shared her story with me when I presented my storytelling workshop for the AFP Finger Lakes Chapter, and she graciously agreed to share it with you.

~Kivi

Guest Post by Allison Monnell, Community Relations Director, Chemung ARC

Working in the human service industry avails itself naturally of great stories of milestones gained, accomplishments achieved and goals met. But how does one capture those numerous success stories to share with one’s constituents, whether they are fellow employees or the larger community?

I work for an agency that supports people with developmental disabilities in the Finger Lakes region of New York. Our challenge was capturing good stories of the people we support and figuring out how to best share them. With over 700 people supported by the agency and a staff of over 400 across 30 different locations, we had to be methodical in our approach. Because the agency distributes an internal e-newsletter to our staff each week, and since this newsletter is the primary source of news and communiqués throughout our agency, we thought this the best vehicle to share our stories.

We set about assigning satellite reporters at each of our locations that we call “stringers” from the old newspaper term for a freelance reporter who was paid by the column inch, which was measured by string and turned into the publisher at the end of each month. We chose front line staff that is privy to the personal triumphs of the people they support each day. We set upon a rotation schedule and asked each stringer to commit to a year by submitting at least two stories per year. We stressed that creative writing skills were not necessary; we just wanted the nuts and bolts: Who, What, Where, When, How & Why. Editing was left to me, and of course, pictures were encouraged.

The idea was that if a story was compelling enough, we would share it with the media. As an agency that is fully enmeshed in providing opportunities for successes and being an excellent community partner, this process fell in line with our mission.

The great payoff is when those stories go beyond the halls of our agency and the greater public is able to share in the benefits we have the privilege of witnessing daily. That happened one Christmas season when we shared the story of Jerry, a man who we support that volunteers at the main library in Elmira, with our local media.

Reporter Jim Pfeiffer (formerly with the Star-Gazette, Elmira, NY), an avid library-goer himself, showed up at Steele Memorial Library to interview Jerry.  Jerry dutifully answered Jim’s questions about his background, his work and his love of volunteering at the library. Unbeknownst to Jerry and Jim, another patron who was in the library during the interview, Dr. Ralph Moore, watched the interaction and was touched by what he saw. How surprised we were to learn that Dr. Moore would be so moved to submit an Op-Ed piece to the Star-Gazette about his observation of Jim and Jerry that was featured a week later on Christmas Day.

So our little story about Jerry’s love of volunteering led to a feature article in the Star-Gazette AND an Op-Ed piece. It was reaffirming to see that our method of sharing “success stories” worked! It was like the rolling stone gathering moss. We were thrilled at our agency, thrilled for Jerry, thrilled for those that support Jerry, and thrilled that our idea of sharing human interest stories could be impactful. This was recognition enough, but almost a year later the recognition went even further.

Our state association, NYSARC, Inc., holds an annual competition, the Media Awards, that recognizes significant contributions and an ongoing commitment through documented journalism toward furthering the public’s awareness of developmental disabilities. I nominated Jim’s article for best human interest story and Dr. Moore’s column for best editorial. Lo and behold, Jim’s story won third place, and Dr. Moore’s piece took first place! Icing on the cake.

For those of you struggling with ways to capture stories, our Stringer Success Story program has been successfully reporting out stories each week for over five years. We count it as one of our agency success strategies! Please feel free to contact me to learn more about how to start your own “Stringer” program.

Allison Monnell lives in the beautiful Finger Lakes region of New York state where she works as a community relations director for Chemung ARC, a not-for-profit agency that supports people with developmental disabilities. Additionally, Allison owns and operates Alli’s Studio, a full-service digital design firm specializing in inspired and creative custom design. When time permits, she enjoys interior design, decorative painting and visiting the gorgeous gorges that grace the Finger Lakes.

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Let a Communications Arc be Your Progress Bar

Yesterday Katya Andresen wrote a very short, but powerful post called What’s Your Progress Bar? It’s so short, I’m going to copy the whole thing here:

Katya wrote:

“When we download something, we see a progress bar inching toward an outcome.

What is your cause’s progress bar? Which events, stories, or experiences can make a donor feel that she’s walking a road with you, toward a destination that is near? I’ve always wished I could give to a community cause online, know that Gail from the accounting department logged my donation, watch Jane add another family to their community outreach plan because of my support, and then see the difference I made in someone’s life.

People expect tangibility, so give it to them.”

I think this is a natural fit with three concepts I’ve been talking a lot about lately: editorial calendars, the communications arc, and storytelling. (Nelson Layag did a great job explaining how editorial calendars and the communications arc work for CompassPoint Nonprofit Services in our video interview.)

Think about it. You might not be able to create the kind of progress bar that Katya dreams about (at least not quite yet), but you can definitely create it over the course of several weeks or even months for your supporters.

1. Pick some aspect of your work that includes several interesting people and stories, but is still relatively well defined. You can’t use your organization as a whole. Let’s say it’s a new group of volunteers.

2. Using the idea of the communications arc, map out several potential touch points. For example, the volunteers connect with you in several different ways. They attend an orientation together. They do their first assignments. Some have life-changing experiences. You start to see some of the results of their work. Some volunteers move on; others renew their commitment. There’s a beginning, middle, and end to the arc.

3. Think of different ways to tell stories along that arc, hitting on the major touch points. Keep in mind that many of the real details will probably change as events actually occur. That’s OK. Sketch out the arc and the stories on it the best you can for now. For example, maybe you choose to follow three of the ten new volunteers more closely to get their back stories and to interview them more intensely during their time with you.

4. Schedule when you can tell these stories into your various communications channels on your editorial calendar. Think about the best ways to share these stories over the weeks or months in your e-newsletter, on your blog or website, and on Facebook, for example. Do you put one volunteer in each channel, or mix up their experiences? Think about how you will maintain the arc, and give readers enough information to get them hooked, and waiting for the next update from you.

5. Deliver the content. Adjusting your plan as needed, share your real stories. Be sure your supporters know where and when to get that update! And link back to previous “episodes” of the story so those who join in mid-stream can easily catch up.

Can you share one of your communications arcs? Leave a note in the comments.

We’ll talk more about communications arcs during Wednesday’s webinar,  Taming Your Editorial Calendar and Content Creation Process, on May 18, 2011 at 1:00 p.m. ET and during Creating Awesome Content: Ideas for Nonprofit Writers on May 25.

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I asked for your storytelling questions at the beginning of March on Facebook, and answered a few of them with these posts:

Three Stories Every Nonprofit Should Tell

Telling Stories When You Help Indirectly

Storytelling: Behind the Scenes at One Warm Coat

Here are my “lightening round” answers to the remaining questions . . .

Q: What are the different ways stories can be used and for what purpose?

Stories are perfect in any scenario where you think an example could illustrate your point. They are also essential anywhere you need to make an emotional connection.

Check out these earlier posts . . .

Using Stories in Fundraising: What Would You Do?

More Proof that Storytelling and Gratitude Payoff

Examples of Nonprofit Stories

How to Get Top Mileage Out of Your Best Stories

Q: How can we tell stories that promote community change? The concept of “community change” (aka “systems-level change” in social-work speak) is hard to grab on to, so we talk about our vision for the community and how the coalitions will help us get there. But there’s a lot of intellectual discussion here and not much heart.

This is a tough one, but I suggest using stories as a way to “connect the dots.” It’s hard for people to see the long and winding path of social change, so pick a few markers of progress (or barriers) along the way, and then tell stories about what’s happening at those markers.

Q: Photos are next to impossible to come by. Any suggestions on how to make the story compelling without a name or face?

Stock photography is probably your best choice. There’s good stock, and bad stock. Invest some time in sorting through the various websites until you find some photos that look natural. They are out there.

You could also pay a professional photographer (or get a really good volunteer) to stage some photos for you with models, so you get the look you are after.

Q: I work for an environmental advocacy organization that works on every environmental problem in the state. The victories are ethereal. How do we find stories of the impacts of our work?

Much like the answer above about community change, I think you have to break the ethereal down into smaller, more real elements. You need to answer the “So what?” question about your work over and over until you get to something specific.

Q: How do you incorporate storytelling when the people your organization serves are children? Some see using their stories are exploitive.

Telling stories about kids (or anyone who for whatever reason doesn’t really have the capacity to give permission themselves) does require extra care. Stories are an excellent way to illustrate both problems and solutions, and you can do that without exploiting any one person.

Here’s what I said in my book about protecting the privacy of people in your stories:

Many nonprofits must wrangle with legal and ethical issues when talking about the people they serve. But don’t use confidentiality requirements as an excuse for avoiding storytelling. You can approach this challenge is several different ways.

Get permission. Simply ask the person if it’s OK to tell their story, or if you need something more formal (good for potentially controversial or otherwise touchy topics), ask them to sign a release. You can find sample release language by searching online for “story release form” or “model release form.” Write the story, complete with the level of detail you would like to share. Let the subject of the story read it and make any edits she’d like. When you explain how you’ll be using the story to build support for your agency, many people are not only flattered, but pleased to be able to give back in this way.

Change identifying details. You can change elements of the story that are not central to it in order to protect someone’s identify. You can change the person’s name, location, age, and other demographics that are irrelevant to the outcome of the story.

Create a composite. You can combine elements of more than one person’s story into a new fictional character. However, be careful not to present this person as a real human being. Instead, open your story with language like, “Imagine if you were a . . .” or “What if . . .” By using this approach, you are making the story more about the listener and asking that person to put himself in the shoes of someone else. Ensure that your composite still rings true and sounds as if it could be a real person in your community, even if it isn’t.

Q: What’s the best way to find stories within your organization? Can you do something beyond asking people to “send us your story”? That doesn’t always generate a great response.

Most people don’t know what you are talking about when you ask for stories. You have to give them examples of good stories, and then ask if they have a story to share. Also become familiar with the parts of a good story yourself. Then when you overhear those elements, you can dig a little deeper to uncover the full story. Be curious and ask lots of questions!

Q: Storytelling is the most persuasive way to get an audience engaged, but I sometimes feel that clients’ stories get diluted because we have to include mention of a bunch of other stuff that may not be of the greatest interest. Can the communications that nonprofits create be ONLY stories?

Definitely! And, I agree, many nonprofits shoot themselves in the foot by watering down powerful stories with a bunch of facts and figures.

I do think you need to make that next step clear, however. What should the viewer/reader do after watching/hearing the story? Sometimes the call to action is very clear and other times it’s more subtle, but I think you need that next step.

Thanks for all the great questions!

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We all know how valuable photos are to telling our nonprofit stories. And decent point-and-shoot cameras are so affordable that we can do much of this photography ourselves. But then what? How do you organize your photos so you can actually find what you need?

I asked one of my favorite nonprofit photography and storytelling teams, Throwing Light, to share their ideas with you. Here’s what Leah and Andrew Hood advise . . .

A Guest Post by Leah and Andrew Hood, Throwing Light

Andrew, Leah, and their son Emery on assignment in the Dominican Republic

So you know photos are important and you have found staff and volunteers to help document the great things that happen at your organization. Now what?! It can be overwhelming to know how to organize all those photos. Here are some simple tips we have found helpful in organizing digital images.

Off the Camera and Onto the Computer

The first step in organizing your photos is pretty simple: download & backup your files. This may be stating the obvious, but how many of us have 500+ photos stored on our point and shoot. This is not only a recipe for file-loss disaster, but makes it harder to actually use the image. So plug in that camera, and get those files onto a computer. If your organization has a server, save the images on there vs. your personal computer. There is a phrase in the photography business that if your image doesn’t exist in three places, it doesn’t really exist.

Get Organized

This part is really the key in making your photos “findable” and “useable”. Creating a filing system on your computer that makes sense to you (and to your co-workers) is important. First, choose a naming system for your folders and sub-folders. The three primary naming systems are:

1. Date-based

2. Event-based

3. Client-based

The date-based system depends on organizing and naming folders by date. So a folder for the month of February might be named 2010_02. Be sure to put the year first so that the folders will sort properly.

In an event-based system, the folder might be named “Walk-A-Thon” or “Theater Banquet” or whatever your event is named. In these folders would be photos from all previous occasions of that event. So within your “Walk-A-Thon” folder, you might have a “2010” sub-folder.

The client-based naming system is a bit more rare for non-profits. We worked with an organization that brought professional musicians into schools to teach music lessons. That organization might want to keep all of its photos from a certain school in one folder. So they might have a “Lincoln High” folder and a “James Elementary” folder, for example.

It’s All in a Name

A key element in the usability of your system is changing the file names of your photos and folders from something like C:folder/IMG_290e01.jpg to C:Photos/2011/Jan/VolBanq2011.jpg. When you download your photos from the camera, they will automatically show up in an unhelpful format, so take the time to batch rename them when you download them. Only name the photos that you want to keep. Use a “batch renaming” feature to rename multiple photos. Always name photos with simple, searchable, descriptive text. Usually the name is based on an event or subject. For example, “Tree_Planting_001”. This step will save you HOURS of searching for that perfect image in the future.

Keep a Running Folder of A+ Images

Every once in a while you are going to get a stellar image. Don’t lose it in the virtual pile of photos on your computer. When you have an image that you know you will want to feature on the website, an e-newsletter, or next year’s annual report, copy it into a special folder. This gives you a chance to get the most mileage out of your great photos.

*********************

What ideas do you have for organizing photos so you can find them when you need them? Share your thoughts in the comments.

You can also share on our Facebook page, where reader Katherine Jimenez posted the question that prompted this post.

Leah

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On Thursday, March 10, I’m presenting the webinar, Three Stories Every Nonprofit Should Be Telling. During the webinar, I’ll walk you through the three plots described below and give you examples and tips for how to tell these stories and how to use them in your marketing and fundraising. (This is also my most popular in-person workshop — I’ll be presenting it in Maryland next week, and in San Francisco on April 19.)

Where do these three plots come from? In one of my favorite marketing books, Made to Stick (Amazon link), Chip Heath and Dan Heath identify three different types of inspirational stories: the Challenge Plot, the Creativity Plot and the Connection Plot. All three have very basic elements, and all three are invaluable in nonprofit marketing. I’ve expanded on what the Heaths say about these stories to make them work even better in the nonprofit world.

If you don’t know how to write these stories, now is the time to learn. Trust me, the nonprofits raising the most money and expanding their lists of supporters the fastest know how to tell their stories well. You can too.

Here are some tips for writing each of the three basic plots.

The Challenge Plot

The challenge plot is your basic, three–act structure that practically every Hollywood movie is based on. These are your classic underdog, against-all-odds stories.

You start by introducing a character and her situation and goals. Then in Act 2, she faces barriers to reaching those goals and the tension mounts. Will everything work out? Usually not until things get even worse. Then in Act 3, we get to the big climax where our heroine finally triumphs!

One common mistake nonprofits use when telling Challenge stories is making themselves the hero. In most cases, your nonprofit won’t appear in the story until Act 3 and then you are typically just part of the supporting cast that helps the main character get over those barriers. These stories work best when the main character is a client, volunteer, donor or someone else involved in or affected by your work, but not the nonprofit itself.

The Creativity Plot

Creativity stories create those big “Aha!” moments and tell those “what if we … ” stories that work out in the end, even though the idea may seem a little too crazy or bold at the start. For a good creativity plot, you need a well-understood problem and a standard response that just doesn’t work.

Again, use the people around you — clients, volunteers, donors — to explain the problem and inadequate solution. Then introduce the new approach that your nonprofit or someone affiliated with your nonprofit is trying. Theoretical solutions and test runs are OK here – you don’t have to have all the details figured out in order to inspire someone with the possibility of new solutions. Then you end the story with a vision of a new reality and how that original problem would be solved.

Many nonprofits use this plot to tell their “founding” stories because finding creative new solutions to old problems is behind the formation of lots of nonprofits.

The Connection Plot

Of the three different story plots, this one is the hardest to pull off. If you don’t get it right, your story will sound sappy or manipulative. But like the others, if you can identify the different parts and find the right way to string them together, you’ll have a very powerful story.

Connection stories are the “bridging the gap” stories and “big meaning in small events” stories. Start with a small, specific situation or event, and then look for the larger connection to the greater human experience. These stories usually have a little surprise or epiphany in them that really drives the point home. It’s a nice little story, but the meaning doesn’t become really profound until you add in those last few surprising details or revelations. You’ll see heartfelt connections between the people in the stories and also between the storyteller and the reader.

Once you know what to listen for, you’ll begin to hear story snippets all around you that sound like the chorus of a familiar song. Then you just need to do a little investigating to fill in the verses. You’ll have great stories to tell for your appeal letters, newsletters, websites, and other communications.

Want More Details and Examples?

Join us for Three Stories Every Nonprofit Should Be Telling. If you can’t make it or missed it, get an All-Access Pass to view the recording.

Love the daily blogging? Great! If not so much, switch to Kivi’s weekly email newsletter with blog highlights and then unsubscribe from the blog’s emails.

Several great questions have come in via Facebook about storytelling, including this one, which I hear just about every time I teach a storytelling workshop:

How can I use stories if we are several steps removed from the people receiving the help?

This is a common question from organizations like United Ways and other fundraising federations, from nonprofits that are technical assistance or support organizations for other nonprofits, and from research and national policy organizations. Staff at nonprofits like these would love to use storytelling, and envy their peers who work at nonprofits that provide direct services to people or animals.

Here are three suggestions for how to use “on the ground” or “client” stories in these situations.

1. Ask your partners to share.

You probably work with partner organizations, or organizations you consider your clients, who do work directly with people on the ground. Explain that you want to tell stories that help demonstrate the real-world impact of your work, and ask them to share.

That’s what One Warm Coat did with the story I blogged about yesterday. One Warm Coat helps other nonprofits and individuals organize coat drives. So they asked some of their local community partners to share stories they could use nationally. One Warm Coat is based in the San Francisco Bay Area, but Albert’s story takes place in Thoreau, New Mexico. Sylvia and Sherri didn’t give Albert’s family the coats directly, but they are an important part of the infrastructure that created the change for this family. Sure, the social service agencies that work with the families who received the coats are more directly connected, but there’s no reason why One Warm Coat shouldn’t tell those stories too.

Yes, some nonprofits will be too “selfish” to share good stories. But if you ask around enough, I’m sure you can find someone who will share. It’s just a matter of finding the right partner who values you enough to cooperate. You don’t need cooperation from everyone. A few good stories is all you need.

2. Connect the dots yourself.

You probably come across stories all the time in the news or via the grapevine where you think, “We’re a part of that, and no one will ever know.”

Use those stories as a launching point to talk about your work. It might go something like this . . . “Did you see the story in the New York Times about the women who (fill in the blank, recount the story.) Did you know that when you donate to our organization, you are helping people like her? Here’s how . . . (then explain how your work helps others who help that woman).  Don’t let complicated relationships get in the way of helping your supporters really understand the value of the work you do. Connect the dots between what you do and something more “real world” that they can understand.

3. Use a testimonial instead.

I get it. You don’t want take credit for work done by others. But what about if they give you the credit themselves? Ask the executive directors of some of the nonprofits that your organization supports or helps in some way to talk about your value.  Ask them to complete sentences like these:

“Thanks to the help of (your organization), now we can _______”

“If (your organization) wasn’t here for us, we couldn’t __________”

Hopefully those blanks are filled in with stories too!

Have some examples or other tips to share for telling the story when you are connected indirectly? Leave them in the comments.

P.S. We have three storytelling webinars this month:

March 10: Three Stories Every Nonprofit Should Be Telling

March 24: Telling Powerful Stories about Everyday People

March 30: Storytelling for Fundraisers

I’m also offering storytelling consultations.

Love the daily blogging? Great! If not so much, switch to Kivi’s weekly email newsletter with blog highlights and then unsubscribe from the blog’s emails.

A couple of weeks ago, Sybil Hunt and Sherri Wood with One Warm Coat shared that they had received an honorable mention in the TechSoup Digital Storytelling Contest for their five-slide show called “Albert’s Story.”  Both Sherri and Sybil have worked with me via my coaching programs over the last couple of years, and are great about sharing with me how they are using what they’ve learned. This time, I asked Sybil to take it one step further, and to share with you the behind-the-scenes of how they captured Albert’s story.

Before reading this interview, be sure to view the show so you understand the context.

Kivi: How did you go about finding Albert’s story?

Sybil: Sherri Lewis Wood, the president of One Warm Coat, had developed numerous contacts among the Native American tribes and the community service agencies who assist them — and she simply reached out to them to ask whether they would be open to sharing information about the need for warm coats. I was able to connect with the two leaders who responded.

Kivi: How did you collect the details you needed for the story?

Sybil: I sent them a short interview form, with questions/prompts that would help them tell us more about the people and their situations. The leader of an agency that serves the Navajo in Thoreau, NM was especially helpful. It was her description of a family with five children — and how the mom had given her coat to her daughter (and then had none for herself) — that prompted Albert’s story.

Kivi: Were there any privacy concerns?

Sybil: Protecting the identity and dignity of those we serve is critically important. We believe that there are ways to tell these people’s stories and maintain their privacy. To protect the family’s true identity, I fictionalized the older teen’s name. We hope that “Albert’s Story” brings awareness to the need for warm coats, and also spotlights the generous people who became part of the solution.

Kivi: What about the photos? Are those the real kids in the story?

Sybil: The photos are a combination of free stock photos and pictures of the real coat recipients that we received from our Navajo outreach contact. Although I had photos of a mom and her children, I have no way of knowing whether they are the family we’d been told about. The “crisp” photos, generally, came from free stock photo sources. The “blurry” photos were sent by our Navajo outreach contact.

The montage of the smiling children in warm coats ARE coat recipients! (Isn’t it wonderful? They look so warm and happy!)  And the child making a snow angel IS a coat recipient — our Navajo community service agent staged that photo just for our story.

Kivi: So you were clear about how you wanted to tell the story and what you were doing?

Sybil: Definitely, and our website features downloadable photo releases for both children and adults, and I ask for them whenever I feature personal photos.

Kivi: How else have you used this story?

Sybil: There is a much fuller version of Albert’s Story, which we shared with our national partners, Burlington Coat Factory and Good Morning America, some months ago. This 5-slide version was easy to produce because of that.

Kivi: Thanks Sybil, for sharing the how-to’s and for doing so well in the competition!

It’s your turn! Can you share the behind-the-scenes details of a story you are using in marketing or fundraising? Share in the comments, or email me.

P.S. We have three storytelling webinars this month:

March 10: Three Stories Every Nonprofit Should Be Telling

March 24: Telling Powerful Stories about Everyday People

March 30: Storytelling for Fundraisers

I’m also offering storytelling consultations.

Love the daily blogging? Great! If not so much, switch to Kivi’s weekly email newsletter with blog highlights and then unsubscribe from the blog’s emails.

I’m declaring March as “Storytelling Month” here at Nonprofit Marketing Guide. I’ll be blogging about storytelling more than usual, teaching three webinars, and offering story consultations to help you polish up your stories.

Let’s Start with Your Questions!

What questions do you have about using stories in nonprofit marketing and fundraising? I asked on Facebook yesterday, where these questions were posted:

• How do you tell success stories when your organization doesn’t do direct services, but supports other nonprofits who do?
• What are some different ways stories can be used?
• How can we add some heart with stories to more intellectual discussions about community change?
• How can you make a story compelling if you can’t use the name or face of the person?
• How can we use stories when  the impacts of our work are ethereal (like environmental progress)?

Really good questions! I’ll get to all of these over the course of the month. You can add your questions to our Facebook page or leave them in the comments on this post.

Three Storytelling Webinars This Month

March 10: Three Stories Every Nonprofit Should Be Telling

Learn how to write the three most inspiring kinds of stories to your supporters.

March 24: Telling Powerful Stories about Everyday People

Inspire others by telling real stories about the everyday people you meet and work with daily.

March 30: Storytelling for Fundraisers

Learn how to find and use the stories that will raise the most money for your organization.

Each webinar is $35 or you can get them all with our All-Access Pass for $145, which includes webinars in April and May too.

Want My Help Polishing Your Stories?

I will work with you one-on-one to improve a couple of your nonprofit’s stories. You’ll send me your first drafts, and I’ll point out what’s working and what’s not. Together, we’ll talk about ways to make your stories more powerful. You’ll end up with stories that are just right for your marketing and fundraising.

We can discuss your stories via email or phone call, whichever works best for you. You may submit up to 1,000 words total in first drafts of your stories (e.g. one long story or a few short ones).  The consultation is $75, and I’m only offering it this month. Sign up for a story consultation now.

On Monday, I’ll share a great case study from One Warm Coat, with a behind-the-scenes look at how they went about getting the details for a story that earned them national recognition.

Love the daily blogging? Great! If not so much, switch to Kivi’s weekly email newsletter with blog highlights and then unsubscribe from the blog’s emails.