Before my time at The Better Fundraising Co, I used to be a Director of Marketing and Communications for a nonprofit. But then the nonprofit I was working at needed me to create their fundraising materials from scratch, and I discovered a whole new world of expertise — it challenged the beliefs that my nonprofit and I had for how fundraising worked.
But we started raising a LOT more money.
When we learned more about the role of stories in our fundraising, it helped us shape our fundraising pieces to perform better.
Our organization had GREAT stories, but we didn’t always share them in a way that worked effectively for fundraising.
Sometimes we would share a long story that would be full of details and symbolism and references to historical happenings. We loved these stories, but they didn’t seem to work when we were asking donors to give in direct response fundraising.
When we learned to use the right story for the right fundraising piece, our fundraising results increased.
Based on expert advice, we gave each fundraising piece ONE purpose, either asking donors to give or reporting back on what their giving had done.
We started sharing incomplete stories in our fundraising appeals, to show the donors the need that existed. These stories featured someone facing a problem that hadn’t yet been solved. This was an effective part of a piece where we were asking donors to give.
We shared completed stories in our newsletters, to show the donors what their giving had accomplished. These stories featured someone who had been facing a problem and also how the donor’s gift helped to solve the problem. This helped us report back to the donor and show that they made a difference.
This felt different to us internally.
For one thing, our stories were shorter and simpler. But once we got the hang of it, finding and sharing stories was easier. We knew exactly what kind of stories we were looking for, depending on whether we were asking in an appeal or reporting back in a newsletter.
Something that makes me chuckle… back in the day when I was on staff at a nonprofit, the more I learned about best practices for direct response and email fundraising, the more I realized we’d been doing things the hard way.
Once we learned the fundamentals of what worked, everything became easier, including sharing stories. We knew what to do and how to do it.
When we started doing something that was easier AND raised more money – that was a win for us!
Read the whole series:
- How a Strong Fundraising Offer Changes Everything
- Get to the Point FAST to Raise More Money with Your Appeals and E-Appeals
- Make Your Copy Clear and Easy to Understand to Raise More Money
- Design So Donors Can Read, and They Will Thank You by Giving More
- Share Stories That Support Your Ask (This post)
