WELCOME!

STORYTELLING BASICS FOR NON-PROFITS

Presented  by  Vanessa  Chase  &  Guidestar  

Vanessa Chase   Fundraising and Communications Strategist www.TheStorytellingNonprofit.com Speaker: Association of fundraising professionals, Council for Advancement and Support of Education, npEngage, BBCON14, Association of Donor Relations Professionals Clients: BC Children’s Hospital Foundation, Hope for the Nations, Wagner Hills Farm Society, A Rocha Canada, Boucher Instuitue of Naturopathic Medicine

Share Your Thoughts  

What’s your role at your non-profit?

What are you hoping to learn during today’s webinar?

 

WHY STORYTELLING  

RESULTS  

Increase in overall revenue by $150k  

Over 200 major gifts prospects identified  

Massive improvements to donor relations  

TODAY’S AGENDA  

Storytelling in the fundraising context  

5 step process for collecting and developing stories  

How to create a storytelling strategy  

The benefits of engaging your community  

WHAT IS STORYTELLING  

Storytelling is the process of combining facts and narrative in order to communicate a message and an

emotion to a target audience.  

WHEN YOU DON’T TELL STORIES  

you’re not able to connect in an impactful way  

donors don’t understand  

they feel unconnected, so they sever ties  

donors stop caring  

THE DONOR KNOWLEDGE GAP  

The Donor   The Organization  

Stories  

STORIES AS SOLUTIONS  

Stories help bridge the Donor Knowledge Gap in two key ways:

The Organization  they provide context

they emotionally connect your donors to the cause.

5 KEYS TO STORYTELLING  

DEFINE YOUR GOAL & CORE MESSAGE KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE

CHARACTER & CONFLICT

COLLECTING STORIES

SHARING STORIES

DEFINE YOUR GOAL & CORE MESSAGE  

let strategy drive your efforts

identify a goal and a core message

what is the end goal of telling this story?

YOUR CORE MESSAGE

what is the overarching message that you want to convey?

(the reason why someone would

answer the call to action)

DEFINE YOUR GOAL & CORE MESSAGE  

University of Toronto  

h#p://boundless.utoronto.ca/story/holly-­‐zoe-­‐ka8a/  

KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE  Create an audience profile

CHARACTER  

Client Staff Members Board Members

Volunteers Donors Community Advocates

CONFLICT  

conflict is the problem that your character needs to solve

conflict’s solution makes your donors feel like a hero

Cancer Care Connection  

COLLECTING STORIES  KNOW WHAT THEY NEED

“Tell me a story.” is far too broad, be specific:

“I’m writing our donor stewardship report and I want to be able to share a story about someone from (program name). Ideally,

someone who has had a positive experience in the program and you think has really benefited from it. Do you have any thoughts

about people who might be good to speak to?”

COLLECTING STORIES  CREATE TOOLS

Put tools and systems in place to collect stories:

create a story collection form

send out a monthly email

SHARING STORIES  USE YOUR STORY STRATEGY

What are you funding priorities?

When will you be communicating/soliciting donors?

What opportunities do you have for

storytelling?

SHARING STORIES  Month   Campaign/

Funding  Priority  

Fundraising  Tac7c  #1  

Fundraising  Tac7c  #2    

Donor  Stewardship  

Other  

January  

February  

March  

April  

May  

STORYTELLING  CAN  TRANSFORM    YOUR  NON-­‐PROFIT  

STORYTELLING  CAN  TRANSFORM    YOUR  NON-­‐PROFIT  

The most important stories are the ones you tell yourself and the ones you tell each other.  

QUESTIONS?

THANK YOU!

vanessa@thestorytellingnonprofit.com

@vanessaechase

storytellingnp/

www.thestorytellingnonprofit.com