How To Make Your Story Stand Out Charlie Hulme DonorVoice

 Neurological insight as to why stories work  Understand how to tell stories  Five area’s to focus on that have a proven impact on response and results  First draft of your next appeal!  Take stock of how we’ve been doing

 Both the number of donors and amounts they donate are dropping  180,000 registered charities in UK  Countless thousands more too small to register  All experience no growth and horrendous retention  Competing for attention with commercials  Everyone’s trying to tell their story!

…overly formal, cold, detached, and abstract!  1.5 million words  2,412 online and direct mail documents  725 U.S. charity organizations raising min $20 million  145 raising less than $20 million  10 international charities that raise at least $20 million in the U.S.

Problem? Solution? Action? Basic story structures

What’s your core?

Exercise #1: What’s your core?  Get into groups  Identify and discuss what the core purpose of your charity is (this may not be the current mission statement!)  Can you define that purpose/core in a simple phrase, e.g. “The low cost airline”

“If I look at the mass I will never act. If I look at the one, I will” “The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of millions is a statistic” People not Numbers

How does this affect giving?

‘Identifiable victim’ beat big number by more than 50%

A) Give $10 million to fight a disease claiming 20,000 lives and save 10,000 B) Give $10 million to fight a disease claiming 290,000 lives and save 20,000

The bigger the number the less we donate

 Get back into groups  Think of an individual’s story that moved you  How could that persons experience embody the core of your work?  Tell their story using the headings ‘Problem’, ‘Solution’, ‘Action’ Exercise #2: People not Numbers

Which ‘story’ got our attention?

Question of perception…

Which works better? ‘We can only reach half…’ ‘’We’ve already reached half…’

 Go back to your story  What did that persons life look like before you?  What would the future have held for them without you?  What does it look like now?  How can you use the difference to illustrate ‘hope’? Exercise #3: Hope not Hopeless

If it can work for him…

Help Raise $3000 A) $2000 already raised B) $300 already raised Group A had a six fold increase in contributions!

Think about your next campaign Who are you talking to? Can you demonstrate that the ‘solution’ happened because of people ‘like’ them? Exercise #4: Together not Separate

Where would you put this? Put drops in ‘R ear’

 How does this story show that you’re the organization that will get the job done?  What’s your ‘Unique Reason to Give’?  Weave all these elements together and tell your story… Exercise #5: Leaders not Followers

Tell us your story…

These aren’t stories at all! Before you wrote it, someone lived it… Whatever you put before your cause you lose…

Checklist… 1.Is there an attention grabbing headline? 2.Does it fit within our core purpose? 3.Is it about what we want or what they can do? 4.Is it single focused? 5.Is it easy to follow, or are we using insider jargon? 6.Is there an identifiable ‘victim’? 7.Is our message hopeful or hopeless? 8.Have we used social proof to evidence support? 9.Is our Unique Reason to Give clear?

Eliminate copy by committee

Would you have been allowed to sign off his ‘story’?

Questions?