Finding the Stories that Inspire: 6 Story-Gathering Tips for Nonprofits
By now, we’re all in agreement: stories are an unbeatable way to connect with your supporters and inspire them to take action. But where are those elusive stories hiding?
Maybe you’re thinking, we don’t have any interesting stories. Or you just don’t have the time to find them on top of all the other things on your plate.
For many nonprofits, tracking down stories can be a challenge.
But here’s the good news: great stories are already happening all around you. In your shelters, your clinics, your classrooms, your kitchens. You don’t need a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter to uncover them—you just need a system that helps you notice them, collect them, and share them well.
These next six tips will help you do exactly that.
Tip #1 – Encourage A Culture of Storytelling
Story-gathering can’t happen in silos.
After all, stories aren’t going to pop up in the confines of your cubicle. They happen where your program teams are at. They happen where clients are being served. They happen where volunteers are busily helping.
That’s why it’s so important that everyone in your organization understands the value of stories as a part of your work. If not, they could be witness to moving, memorable stories each and every day, without ever thinking to record them or share them.
If your CEO, Marketing Director, or Director of Development is already an advocate for storytelling, enlist their help to promote a culture of storytelling across your organization. This can be as simple as planning a meeting to talk about how stories support your mission and goals.
Show your team members the evidence that stories increase engagement and giving. Share great examples of nonprofit storytelling. Get people excited about finding stories! There are plenty of great resources online to help you make the case. Check out www.thestorytellingnonprofit.com for starters.
You can also reinforce the value of stories by sharing great results from story-centered fundraising campaigns, as well as positive feedback from supporters to stories you’ve shared in the past.
By keeping the value of storytelling top-of-mind, it will get people across your organization thinking about the stories that they hear every day—from clients, program staff, volunteers, and donors, priming them to share those stories as you go forward.
Tip #2 – Get Your Story Team Together
Story-gathering isn’t something that can be done off the corner of someone’s desk. To make it work, you need to set aside time and resources. We know, you’ve got a ton on your collective plates already, but investing in stories will pay dividends, guaranteed.
It’s a good idea to delegate one team member to lead your story-gathering efforts. This role can vary from organization to organization.
Your lead can act as the story collector, single-handedly leading all interviews, write-ups, and story organization tasks. Or they can take on a story curator role, coordinating with others to collect stories from the front lines. In this case, a lot of their work will involve sending out regular reminders to program staff to ask for stories, assign deadlines, and organize and edit stories that come in.
Once you’ve got your story team together, consider investing in their skills development. There are lots of courses and resources available to build interview skills, learn storytelling fundamentals, and to get a grounding in the ethics of storytelling.
Tip #3 – Tools Of The Trade
Beyond skills development, you can help set your story gatherers up for success by ensuring that they have the right tools at hand.
Here are some suggestions:
- Interview framework: One of our food bank clients has put together a list of questions that they use as a framework for most interviews. This gives them a solid foundation, rather than going into each interview with a completely blank slate. When the team was putting together the framework, they brainstormed questions that would help clients open up about their journey. They included a mix of factual questions (when/where/who/how) and emotional questions (how did this make you feel)
- Waiver: It’s important that your interviewees understand what their rights are in relation to their stories and photos, and to secure their consent before sharing any of their information. (We’ll talk about that more in Part 2 of this series.) Spend the time to develop a clear waiver in consultation with a legal expert, and make sure that your story gatherers are ready to walk through it with the people they’re interviewing.
- Audio recorder, cell phone, notebook, camera: Always be prepared! Your story gatherers should keep everything they need at the ready because you never know when the opportunity to talk to someone will arise. It’s a good idea to keep both a notebook and a recording device on hand. Not everyone feels comfortable being recorded, so give your interviewees options.
Tip #4 – Get Out On The Front Lines
One of the best ways to find inspiring stories is to put yourself “in the path” of them. If at all possible, have your story gatherers regularly spend time working alongside your program teams, volunteers, and others who are on the front lines.
This kind of partnership has a number of benefits. It will give your story gatherers a deeper understanding of the work going on on the ground. It will build a stronger rapport between your programs and communications teams. And it will give your story gatherers the opportunity to build a relationship—and trust—with the people your organization serves, encouraging them to open up about their stories.
Tip #5 – Plan Ahead
Pssst! When you wait until a couple of days before a deadline, then rush to track down a story from a harried member of your program team…it shows.
Give your team—and your stories—breathing room. Plan ahead to the extent that you can.
Some nonprofits build out an annual storytelling plan, identifying the types of stories they’ll need to support upcoming campaigns, stewardship pieces, and other initiatives.
Others flag their story needs in their annual fundraising, marketing, or communications plans.
Either way, it’s a great idea to forecast when you’ll need stories and the kinds of stories that will best support your goals.
Review your plan on a regular basis, and get your story needs on team members’ radars early and often. This can be as simple as sending an email at the top of each month listing the story needs for the following month. Or you can dedicate part of your regular staff meetings to gathering stories from team members.
The best way to avoid panicked, last-minute story searches? Set up a story bank.
Tip #6 – Create A Story Bank
A story bank is one of the best investments you can make for your communications, marketing, and fundraising efforts. Not only will it give you a predictable source of stories to draw from, but it will also keep those stories organized and accessible, making everyone’s lives easier.
You can use different tools—from a spreadsheet, to your CRM, to a project management app like Trello—to organize your story bank. Whatever is most intuitive and effective for your team.
Here’s some of the information that a good story bank should capture:
- Name of the person sharing their story (and pseudonym, if needed)
- Interview date and location
- Interviewer
- Themes or “tags” to help you organize and sort your stories
- Where the story will be (or has been) used in your supporter communications
- A link to the full interview transcript, audio/video file, or write-up
- A link to any photos or other resources related to the story
Wrap-up
Follow these tips, and you’ll be well on your way to powerful, vibrant storytelling. The kind of storytelling that inspires your supporters to take action on behalf of your cause, and those you help.
Need A Hand?
Whether you’re just starting to pull stories together or looking to take your storytelling game to the next level, we can help. At Give, we’ve been helping organizations like yours identify powerful stories, craft compelling narratives, and use them to drive engagement, fundraising, and retention.
From story strategy and interview frameworks to waiver templates and story bank design—we’ve done it all, and we’d love to help you get there too.
