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From Impact To Influence: Telling Your Nonprofit's Stories Well · Nonprofit Launch Plan Podcast for Startup, Small, and Growing Nonprofits

• 0:00
  Matt Stockman: What you should find is that your character's challenge should be closely aligned with the problem that your nonprofit is created to solve. Welcome to the nonprofit launch plan podcast for startups, small and growing nonprofits. My name is Matt Stockman. I am a nonprofit growth coach, and I'm thrilled you're here. This podcast exists to help you build your nonprofit from the ground up on a strong foundation.
• 0:28
  So every episode, we give you frameworks, we give you tools, and we give you personalized guidance that will help you create lasting impact in the world that you want to serve. At Nonprofit LaunchPlan, we believe that every nonprofit has to be operating at peak performance in six core areas in order to be successful. Those areas are leadership, fundraising, marketing, programs and services, operations, and finances. So every episode of the podcast, we talk about a topic that is core to at least one of those six areas. And today we're diving into one of the most powerful tools in your nonprofit's toolkit, and that is storytelling.
• 1:10
  My objective today by the end of the podcast is to be able to help you understand how to craft and share compelling stories that really truly showcase your nonprofit's impact, in turn, stronger, deeper connections with your audience, with your donors, your potential donors, your business partners, and other people that are connected with your nonprofit. I always start most podcast episodes with a little bit about why this matters. Why is storytelling so crucial for nonprofits? And it boils down actually to a few key reasons. Number one, stories are the proof of performance, if you will, of your nonprofit making an impact, which is a just super important imperative piece to build lasting relationships with your donors and supporters.
• 1:58
  Here's what I mean. Your nonprofit exists to solve a problem in the world. Every nonprofit does. For that matter, every business that is in business today exists to solve a problem too. For example, if you own a restaurant, you're open to solve the problem of I'm hungry and I need to eat lunch.
• 2:16
  So when I have that problem, I come to you, I give you $10, and you solve my problem by presenting me with a cheeseburger and french fries. And if it was a memorable experience and the burger was great, then the next time I have that problem, I'm gonna be real likely to consider coming back to your place to let you solve the problem again. Well, your nonprofit exists to solve a problem too, except in this case, when the donor gives you the $10, you give the cheeseburger and the fries to somebody else. So the only thing that might cause a donor to consider giving another $10 at some point is a report from you or better put a story of how that $10 cheeseburger changed somebody's life that was really hungry. The donor feels good about the impact that they made.
• 3:05
  They feel like the hero of that story, and they want to give again in order to recreate that feeling again. Plus number two, stories create emotional connections. Facts and figures and numbers and data, so on and so forth are important, but they don't actually stir the soul in the same way a personal story, a narrative does. So when somebody hears a story, they often can see themselves in it in some way or at least connect with the person or situation. And if they can see themselves as a hero in the story, that's the best.
• 3:39
  It's that emotional resonance that moves people from awareness to engagement. So the emotional connection from a story is really important. In addition, stories simplify complex ideas and make them relatable. A lot of nonprofits deal with multifaceted social issues or really difficult sort of heady, hard to understand concepts sometimes with a lot of layers to them. And a well told story can break down all the complexities of all that, make the mission of the organization a lot more understandable and accessible to a bigger audience no matter the background.
• 4:18
  And lastly, stories inspire action. Whether it's a donation or somebody volunteering some time or simply sharing your message with someone else. Stories are just the most powerful and effective way of motivating people. They paint a picture of change. They show how one person's contribution can make a tangible difference and so much more.
• 4:40
  So they're very inspirational when it comes to action. Those are some of the reasons stories are so powerful and so important to your nonprofit. Now it is important to differentiate between a story and an endorsement. Both have a place in your nonprofit's toolkit, but stories pack a much sort of bigger punch when it comes to demonstrating impact. Let me share the difference between the two.
• 5:05
  An endorsement is essentially kind of a feel good statement about your nonprofit. Somebody might say, this organization is amazing, or this nonprofit does such great work. It's positive, but it's very general, not specific at all. That's an endorsement. A story on the other hand demonstrates the change that you're hoping for in your nonprofit.
• 5:29
  It shows rather than tells the transformation that occurs because of the work that you do. It's about a specific individual or situation. We'll talk about that more in just a moment. And it details a journey from challenge to solution to outcome. So let's look at an example, and we're gonna use this example throughout the course of the rest of this podcast episode.
• 5:52
  Imagine a nonprofit that provides job training for at risk teenagers and young adults. An endorsement might be their job training program is excellent. It's not wrong. It's not bad, but it's pretty general, and you don't really learn a whole lot about the actual impact of the organization from the endorsement. On the other hand, a story would be something like this.
• 6:16
  Let me tell you about Sarah. She got into some trouble in high school. She had to drop out of school early. She ended up getting pregnant, made some poor choices like we all do when we're 17 or 18, and ended up spending a short time incarcerated. When Sarah came into our job training program, she got the skills training that she needed, which thankfully you helped fund by the way.
• 6:37
  And now Sarah is working full time. She's got a salary job complete with benefits and has a fulfilling career. And most important is able to support her child. See the difference? That's a story.
• 6:50
  A statement like the job training program is excellent at fill in the blank nonprofit. That's an endorsement. Both are valuable, but story is far more powerful in demonstrating impact. So how do you put together these powerful impact stories? Well, I am so glad you asked because I have a simple yet really easy to use effective framework.
• 7:15
  That's four steps that you can use to put together impact stories. I want you to think of each one of these four steps as the key elements of any compelling impact story. And once I go through the four steps, if you start thinking about a story, but you're having a hard time identifying one of the four steps in your story, what you might have is an unfinished story, or you might have more of an endorsement rather than an impact story. So this framework will really help you identify the important parts of a story and then be able to tell it quickly and clearly, which is really important because we've all talked to people who can't tell a story without sharing so many details that you lose track of the actual storyline. You know exactly what I'm talking about, and you know somebody who fits the bill of that.
• 8:07
  Clarity in storytelling helps donors and potential donors clearly see themselves as the hero in the story. So there's four parts to the framework of an effective story. The first is you need a character. This is the person who has benefited from your nonprofit work, and it's crucial that it be an individual or a family, not a group or society in general or the entire county or all the hungry people in your state. Be specific and not general.
• 8:39
  In the end, people connect with other people. So an individual. In the story I shared just a moment ago about the job training program, the character would be Sarah. Okay. So first you need a character.
• 8:52
  Next, you need to identify the challenge. That's step two. What is the problem or obstacle that this character has faced? This is similar to the problem that you might have identified in all the work we've done in previous episodes, or if you've been through the fearless fundraising, the five steps of the fearless fundraising framework, you know that identifying the problem is the first step of those five steps. What is the difficulty that your character was experiencing?
• 9:22
  And what you should find is that your character's challenge should be closely aligned with the problem that your nonprofit is created to solve. Let me say that again. What you should find is that your character's challenge, the obstacle they're facing should be really closely aligned with the problem that your nonprofit is created to solve. In the story I shared about the job training, the challenge is Sarah got in trouble in high school, had to drop out of school, got pregnant, ended up a short time being incarcerated. That's the challenge that Sarah was facing.
• 9:57
  So number one, you have to have a clearly defined character, an individual or a family. Next, you have to identify the challenge, the problem, the obstacle they faced. Then third comes the solution. How did your nonprofit help? What specific programs, services, or support did you provide to be able to address their challenge?
• 10:20
  Let's go back to Sarah's story. I said, let me tell you about Sarah. She got into some trouble in high school, had to drop out of school, got pregnant, ended up spending a short time incarcerated. That's the character and the challenge. Now the solution, when Sarah came into our job training program, she got the skills training she needed.
• 10:42
  That's the solution specific. She was in the specific job training program and that support addressed the challenge that she was having. So that's step three. Step one, have a character. Step two, identify the challenge.
• 10:57
  Step three, roll out the solution. Step four, following the solution is the outcome. What changed for the character? How has the character's life improved after their intersection with your nonprofit and the work you do? This is where you really highlight the impact.
• 11:16
  In Sarah's story, it's the last part. When I said now Sarah's working full time, she's got a salary job with full benefits, has a fulfilling career, and most importantly, she's now able to support her child. That's the outcome. That's step four. Now at times, depending on the situation in which you're sharing your story, there might actually be a fifth step.
• 11:39
  A call to action at the end might be necessary right after the story. In other words, how can you invite others to help create more success stories like the story I just shared about Sarah? It might be completely appropriate to invite your audience to be a part of the solution at the end of the story. For example, let me share Sarah's story one more time with a call to action at the end. Sarah got into some trouble in high school.
• 12:09
  She had to drop out of school. She got pregnant at 17, and she ended up spending a short time incarcerated because of some poor decision she made. And when she got out of jail, she couldn't find a job that was adequate enough to provide the resources to take care of her child. When Sarah entered our job training program, she got the skills training she needed, which thankfully people just like you helped to fund. I added that line in.
• 12:35
  I'll come back to it in just a second. And now Sarah is working full time, salaried, she's got benefits, and now has a fulfilling career, and most importantly, is able to support her child. Call to action right here. If you would consider a gift of a $114 right now, you're gonna be able to open the door to the job training program for another three girls who are just like Sarah, hoping to get the skills training they need to, number one, have a fulfilling career, but more importantly, have a better life. Can we count you in for 114 today?
• 13:12
  So one thing to note in that story is in the middle, when I was talking about the solution, the job training programs, and the skills training that CIRA was able to participate in, I paused there, and I said to the person who I was talking to, the potential donor, thankfully, people just like you gave to make this possible for CIRA. What that does is it plants the idea in their mind that they could in fact be the hero of a story just like Sarah's. So even in the middle of the story, I'm taking just a quick moment to start to set up the call to action, which I knew was coming at the end of the story. That's how powerful these stories can be. Here's a few other things to keep in mind to make your stories even stronger.
• 14:01
  Remember, focus on one individual or family in order for it to be the most relatable that it can. Use as much vivid detail and emotion. I described in detail the challenges that Sarah was facing. She ended up short time incarcerated. She got pregnant at 17.
• 14:20
  She made some bad choices. Those were vivid details. You also have to be authentic and ethical, which is paramount. You always have to get consent from the individuals that you're featuring. Of course, you never wanna exaggerate or make up details.
• 14:36
  Your credibility your credibility is really important. And a practical tip, I would encourage you to come up with a system to develop a story archive and a processing system. Because once your nonprofit gets up and running and you're starting to see the impact of your work all over the place, it's really easy to get so busy sort of doing the work that you don't take advantage of the opportunity of cataloging the stories as they take place, getting consent, and then having a system to categorize them so that they're ready when you need them. And here's the other thing, you don't need hundreds of stories. You need just a few stories that really demonstrate the real true impact of your organization in a tangible way in an individual's life.
• 15:28
  And oftentimes five or six stories do the job really well. In fact, I know about one nonprofit that has actually created a scoring system for their stories based on the four components of the framework, the character, the challenge, the solution, and the outcome. And they score each one of those categories between one and five, so there's 20 total points. And the ones that score 15 or higher, those are the ones that they really try to use in all of their marketing language, in their donor communication, in their social media, etcetera. So a story archive, a processing system, a central location that you catalog these stories is really important.
• 16:12
  Earlier this week, I had a little bit of back and forth by email a listener to the podcast who basically asked the question, I'm at the beginning of my nonprofit journey. Help me know what to do if I don't really have any stories of impact yet. We're just working on stuff behind the scenes and trying to get some financial support together. I don't really have impact stories that are super compelling that I can tell people that might get them on board financially and get them supporting our work. What do I do to solve that problem?
• 16:46
  Well, that is a great question. I do have some ideas. In fact, we're going to make that the next episode of the Nonprofit Launch Plan podcast. Stories are really, really the most powerful marketing tool that you have as a nonprofit. And let me say this, businesses and other consumer brands literally would give their right arm to have this kind of potential influence because at best what businesses have is Yelp reviews, or maybe some good comments on a Google site someplace.
• 17:20
  But you have real tangible stories of how the work that your nonprofit does literally has transformed somebody's life. That is the most powerful marketing tool that you have and learning how to use it correctly is a key ingredient to the growth and overall success of your nonprofit. All right. That's enough for this episode of the nonprofit launch plan podcast for startups, small and growing nonprofits. Remember, your stories are your most powerful asset.
• 17:52
  Start working on crafting them and sharing them today. You're gonna see the impact of your organization grow. You're gonna see people catch the vision of what it is that you do and get excited about partnering with you. If you've got a special question or something that you're facing and you'd like to talk about it, super easy to book some free time on my calendar. When you do, there's no pressure.
• 18:16
  Just wanna explain what happens so you're not surprised. There's no obligation, no pitching. We just get to know each other a little bit. I ask some questions about what you're dealing with. We talk for a few minutes, and then I'll follow-up with you within twenty four hours guaranteed by email with some recommendations for your next steps if I think I might be able to help you in some way or another.
• 18:37
  The whole thing is free. There's no obligation. I promise I don't bite. Also, remember the other freebie that I've got for you on the website. If you wanna binge all the material related to the five steps of the fearless fundraising framework, it's this easy to use workbook and videos that go along with it that take you through the five steps.
• 18:57
  It's a great confidence builder when it comes to inviting other people to partner with your nonprofit financially. It's free and on the website at nonprofitlaunchplan.com. Again, that's all for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss the next episode of the nonprofit launch plan podcast for start up small and growing nonprofits.
• 19:20
  And, also, if you found this helpful, please share it with another nonprofit leader who you think might benefit. Until next time, keep making a difference, and thank you so much for listening.