If you could only tell one story, what would it be?
When you’re fundraising for your nonprofit, you should be thinking about what kind of story to tell and how to tell it to motivate support for your cause. Luckily, you don’t have to be a natural storyteller to leverage the power of storytelling for social good. We’re going to look at how you can tell one individual’s story to inspire generosity and help you raise more money from ordinary people.
REPLACE YOUR STATS WITH A STORY
Emotions, not rational thoughts, drive your donors’ decisions. Unlike an annual report or grant proposal, a successful donation appeal will quickly inspire people to take specific action. For your next individual fundraising campaign, skip the statistics!
Instead, save your numbers for other communications and tell the story of one particular person.
In storytelling terms, this person is your story’s hero: an individual who, with your nonprofit’s support, overcomes the challenges they face. Our partners at SailFuture offer a great example of what this looks like. While they leverage challenging sailing experiences, counseling, experiential education, and long-term housing to help some of society’s most challenging boys develop into independent young men, their recent fundraising campaign focused on Zach’s story:
THE FIVE ELEMENTS OF AN INSPIRING STORY
Zach’s story creates feelings of empathy and hopefulness in a way that data simply cannot relate. He has a unique story, and your nonprofit does, too!
But while your story is unique, you’ll want to rely on tried-and-true story structure to be an effective storyteller.
Rather than reinventing the wheel, you can use the following five elements to bring your hero’s story to life:
1. Main Character
Every good story begins with a relatable protagonist. As a nonprofit, your main character will be someone affected by your cause. You can situate them in time and space by sharing details like their age and where they live. After you introduce your main character, you’ll want to establish their goals. Perhaps they want to graduate from high school or express themselves creatively. Their vision for a better life and efforts to get there are what move the story forward.
2. Conflict
Once you’ve established your main character, you’ll want to introduce the story’s conflict. They have to face an obstacle or a challenge in order to reach their goals. Standing in their way might be poverty, hunger, social norms, or lack of access to key resources. Personification enables you to treat that challenge as the story’s villain. It’s up to your nonprofit and your supporters to rally and help your main character defeat this antagonist.
3. Plot
Your story’s plot describes how your main character, with your organization’s support, faces their challenges. In the SailFuture example, we have to make some assumptions: after losing his mother, it was the support and community that he found within their organization that helped him turn his life around.
4. Resolution
End your story with impact. The final piece of your story should explain that your main character successfully defeated the villain and the benefits they experience now. What progress has your main character made toward their goal? How did your organization and donors help make this ending possible?
5. Call-to-Action
You’re telling your story to build awareness, but more importantly so that people can take action. Let them know how they can make a difference! Each individual story you tell is evidence of your nonprofit’s overall impact. Your main character isn’t unique; there are many others like them in need. Inspire your donors to join your cause and make happy endings like the one you’ve shared possible for others like your main character. This can be written into the story or simply a donate button at the bottom of the page with one line asking supporters to join you.
A well-told individual story is key to raising more money. People don’t want to help in a general or abstract sense. They connect to personal stories and want to help others whom they identify and sympathize with. The next time you have to write a description for your fundraising campaign – make it a story! You’ll inspire your donors to take action for good.
Are you working on a story for your next fundraising campaign? Share any tips you have below!
It is true that the impact a story leaves on a person’s mind is way more significant as compared to the impact left by stats and figures. You can inspire, encourage, and motivate people through your stories, whereas stats can’t do that.