The story of your nonprofit isn’t static.
It also isn’t only yours.
A relatable – and giving-inspired – story includes the mission and goals of your nonprofit organization while incorporating the story of everyone involved with you. Your story is their story, too.
Nonprofit storytelling should be two things: Dynamic and inspirational.
These two goals will help you create, tell, and continue to evolve a story about your organization that makes everyone feel like a part of something important. This approach will even boost fundraising efforts.
Nonprofit Storytelling Starts on the “About Us” Page
Nonprofit storytelling may start on the “About Us” page of your website, but it does not end there.
This is a common fault for many nonprofits. Each time a website is launched, they write a history of the organization, hide it away on the About Us page, and never look at it again.
Your story is changing, and evolving, all the time. Make sure to keep telling it here through regular updates.
And then take it a step further. Where else can you share your story on your website? Weave the narrative into every single page. Your blog is another great place to tell different stories about your nonprofit.
Use different parts of your story in different ways to appeal to your donor base. Break your story down into elements that you can tell (and retell) throughout your nonprofit website.
- Big vision: Goals, philosophy and how your organization makes a difference
- Impact: What you’ve done and who you have helped
- History and roots: How did your organization come to be
- People: Show the team, volunteers, and donors who make your work possible
- Connection and community: Highlight case studies of individual impact
Dynamic storytelling doesn’t happen just one time. It’s up to you to create tell new stories on a regular basis. Every functioning organization has them. Look closely and make it a point to tell others about your work and successes.
Tell the Stories of Others
One of the most impactful ways to keep telling your story dynamically is to showcase the efforts of your community. Tell their stories as they pertain to your nonprofit.
You can share the stories of:
- Staff and workers
- Volunteers
- Donors
- Donor circles or groups
- Events
- Community projects
- Fundraising results
- Impact of your work
Not only will these stories create more engagement with your organization, but they can also help generate interest and spur additional fundraising.
Storytelling helps make people feel like they’re part of something bigger than themselves rather than just giving money to a cause.
Storytelling Isn’t Just Long-Form
Nonprofit storytelling might be long-form but it doesn’t have to be.
Think of long-form nonprofit storytelling as those elements and page on your website that are collective and get updated over time, such as your About Us page, historical context, or big-picture strategy, plans, and goals.
That’s only a small piece of the content you produce.
But it does help if you think about all content in the framework of storytelling. A good story has a beginning, middle, and end. (This applies to everything from writing reports to creating an Instagram story.)
As a nonprofit, take your storytelling up a notch by making the story inspiring.
“A good story puts a face behind your mission by describing not just what your organization does, but why you do it. This creates the emotional responses that trigger your audience to take action.”
HubSpot
That story includes five key elements:
- Relatable character: Every story starts with someone people want to know more about
- Emotional connection: What about this story makes people care
- Problem or issue: Conflict creates interest and compels people to pay attention
- Solution or outcome: What happened to create a reason for telling the story, and what can we take away from it?
- Call to action: What can people do now?
You can fit all these elements into a single 280 character tweet or extend them out into a long-form page with a few hundred words of content.
Use Multimedia, Social, and Your Website
Now that you are thinking about the elements of that great story, consider all the different ways you can do it.
Short-form storytelling, including blog posts, photos or video, and social media, can be great outlets to tell your story. None of them are major commitments, but can generate interest and action.
Remember to incorporate each of the five key elements of storytelling above into these content elements as well.
Connect Storytelling to Goals and Desired Outcomes
The common thread of any nonprofit story comes down to mission and goals. These should be evident in every piece of your storytelling.
How does an article, blog post, photo, or video advance your story or help more people understand what you are trying to achieve?
When you carry this narrative thread throughout all of your content creation, it makes dynamic storytelling easy.
Think of it like this: A dynamic story is rooted in a common foundation with new supporting information.
Every activity your nonprofits participates in is part of this evolving story. Every volunteer has an experience to share. Every person you impact through nonprofit work is a micro success story and part of that growing story.
Create a Shareable Storytelling Community
The final element of dynamic nonprofit storytelling is to create a community narrative that others want to share.
When other people are part of your story, they’ll want to spread.
But what kind of stories can you tell? Examples may include:
- Profile of your oldest/youngest/super star volunteer
- Profiles of your team or staff and what your organization means to them
- Impact stories that relate to your mission
- Photos from events that show your nonprofit in action
- User-generated stories of others showing connection to your organization on social media
- Elements of new programming, strategy, or goals
- Profiles of key donors
- Micro-stories that show giving impact (what does $25, $50, $100 do?)
Then make your stories shareable.
- Put information on your website
- Don’t forget a call to action and button to donate
- Include photos or video
- Ask people to share online (consider a hashtag for social media)
- Encourage people to share their stories as well, via email, online form, or on social media
A dynamic, shareable storytelling community is ever-changing. Update everything regularly. New and fresh content and stories will generate more engagement than something that happened in the past.
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