1. Storytelling Resources for Nonprofits4
July 2010

2. Why Stories? http://www.flickr.com/photos/yumievriwan/4372918808/
Personal Connection
Metaphor for understanding
Learning Tools
Fun
Reassuring, helpful

3. “Give the People What They Want”
Hardwired for stories
Better than data
Life to the individual & abstract
Viral marketing needs container

4. Why Nonprofit Storytelling?
Where can you use stories to connect people to your mission?

5. Where Can You Tell Your Organizational Story?
Newsletters
Face to Face
Media
Online
Special Events
Fundraising requests
Where do you tell stories?
Board Members
Fundraisers
Volunteers
Staff

6. Persons Served Who Tells Your Story? Board Members Fundraisers
Volunteers
Staff
Persons Served
What story are they telling?
Whose story should you be telling?

7. Why, Where, Who … But How? and What!? Resources

8. Kivi Leroux Miller A Bag of Chips! 3 Plots Lists of tips Integrating
The Nonprofit Marketing Guide: High-Impact, Low-Cost Ways to Build Support for Your Good Cause “Spread Your Message Further by Telling Great Stories” Chapter
By Kivi Leroux Miller
658.8 L56N Business and Technology
All that and on a bag of chips: anyone can tell stories anywhere
The Challenge Plot; The Creativity Plot; The Connection Plot
Six Qualities of a Good Nonprofit Marketing Story
Resources for finding your organization’s freshest stories
10 tips for creating stories through interviews
Privacy implications and suggested practices
Ideas on where and when to tell stories
Serial storytelling to bring readers back

9. Andy Goodman Online free range thinking newsletter Print
Storytelling as Best Practice

10. Identifying good stories How to listen better
Examples
Identifying good stories
How to listen better
7 questions to sharpen stories
Annotated bibliography
Storytelling as Best Practice: How stories strengthen your organization, engage your audience, and advance your mission.
By Andy Goodman
G62S, 2008 Business and Technology
Written to help nonprofits and foundations tell our good stories using human voice and toning down jargon and slang
“Give the People What They Want”
People are hardwired to respond to stories
Individual stories are more convincing than sets of data
Stories bring the individual and abstract to life
The viral marketing of ideas depends first and foremost on stories (container for transmitting a story)
Storytelling for presentations
Story Banking – collecting personal stories of folks; recognizing good stories, fact-checking, cataloging, even employing a “Tell us Your Story” online submission
Identifying good stories, how to listen better, 7 questions to sharpen stories, more
From free-fange thinking newsletter:

11. Story Banking Process *Collecting stories Recognizing good stories
Fact-checking
*Cataloging
“Tell Us Your Story”
ImPRESSive. Media Tip Sheet for Advocates from FamiliesUSA. July 1999 and Winter 2002.
Story Banking Resources (PDFs) from FamiliesUSA.org:
See FamiliesUSA.org “Tell Us Your Story” page:
Resource: “The Art of Story Banking.” July
Resource: “The Story Bank: Using Personal Stories as an Effective Way to Get Your Personal Message Out.” Winter

12. Story Arc Intro characters and setting Add tension
Climatic moment Resolution

13. “What” is the antagonist
Opening Hook
“What” is the antagonist
Translate w/ budget numbers
“Live Theater”
Applying to all fundraising
Storytelling for Grantseekers: A Guide to Creative Nonprofit Fundraising, 2nd ed.
By Cheryl A. Clarke
361.7 C55S, 2009 Readers’ Services
Devotes a chapter to the Letter of Inquiry, or your organization’s short story
The opening hook, introduction of characters and the setting
“What” the antagonist is and how to develop this character
Introducing tension and conflict to the plot
Goals and objectives as partial resolution
Evaluation and future funding as epilogue and sequel
Translating the narrative using the budget numbers
“Marketing” the proposal with the summary and subject headings
Storytelling as “live theater” during site visits
Applying proposal writing skills to general fundraising
Writing exercises, in-chapter examples, two sample full proposals

14. Social Psych http://www.flickr.com/photos/urbanmkr/237252443/
“Nicolas Kristof’s Advice for Saving the World” on the Invisible Children Blog
“[People] intervene not because of stories of desperate circumstances but when we can be cheered up with positive stories of success and transformation.”
“Storytelling needs to focus on an individual, not a group.”

15. The New Community Anthology: Digital Storytelling as a Community Development Strategy by Mamie Marcuss, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
Discusses three Boston programs teaching digital storytelling
Develop literacy, oratorical, and technological skills
Bridge generations around community story
Tell organization success stories
Train the trainer, further mobilizing supporters and constituents

16. WeAreMedia Storytelling Page
Resource: “Blogging and Storytelling” presentation and notes by Britt Bravo featuring 11 Ways Nonprofits Can Use Blogs
Resource: “Video Storytelling and Strategy” presentation and notes by Michael Hoffman

17. MessageMatrix Template
Message Matters: Succeeding at the Crossroads of Mission and Market
By Rebecca K. Leet
L51M Foundation Collection
The Message Matrix can be used share your story with your storytellers

18. Further Resources