5 Ways to Become a Better Storyteller for Your Nonprofit
3 min to read ✭ Today’s topic will provide tips for using storytelling as a means to spread awareness and reach your nonprofit goals.
Research shows that stories are 22 times more memorable than facts. It seems the deepest actions of human beings are driven by stories. Humans live for stories—the story of who we want to become and how we want to be remembered. Humans find love in stories—the story of who we want to be with and the memories we want to remember. It’s just natural that if you are a nonprofit seeking more donations, more volunteers, or just to spread the word about what you’re doing, storytelling and better stories can help you reach this goal. Today, we will share five tips that you can use to become a better storyteller for your nonprofit.
1. Use Better Characters
The first tip is to use better characters. At its core, a story is just a bunch of characters going from one mood to another, usually from sad to happy. Most nonprofits just use one form of character. It’s the poor child who needs shoes or water, or the poor fish that’s dying, or the dog that needs to be adopted. But it’s time that we use different characters. So as a nonprofit, you could talk about the story of your volunteers. Why did they choose to volunteer with your organization? You could talk about your board members. Why did they choose to join your organization? You could talk about your employees. People who work in nonprofits have amazing stories. These are extremely talented people who could have done anything, but they decided to work with your nonprofit. Using these people as characters for your storytelling can improve your impact and your reach.
2. Adjust Your Stories for Different Social Media Channels
The second tip is to adjust your stories to different social media campaigns. Let’s say you’re creating a video that tells a story of a recent activity you just did. On LinkedIn, you can post a two or three minute video because it is a platform for professionals who want to watch a full-length video. However, Snapchat videos are limited to one minute and people usually watch only 10 to 15 seconds. Therefore, you may want to make your story a little bit shorter on Snapchat to adjust to the younger demographic.
3. Test Different Stories at Different Points of Your Marketing Funnel
The third tip is to test different forms of stories at different points of your digital marketing funnel. The digital marketing funnel goes from awareness to consideration to action. Let’s say you run a pet adoption agency and you’re doing a new campaign at the awareness level, which is the level at which people don’t yet know about your organization. At this level, you might just introduce yourself, your nonprofit and why you started doing what you’re doing. But once you get to the action level when you want people to donate or to volunteer, the trick is to mix statistics or facts within narratives. So you might say something like, “This month we helped 10,000 dogs, next month we want to help 20,000 dogs, and this is the story of how this month went.” Then, at the end of the story say, “Please help us reach this goal.” Therefore, the trick is including a story with your data to get people get people to take action.
4. Use Instagram and Facebook Stories
The fourth tip is to use Instagram and Facebook stories because not all information should be posted directly to your Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram feed. Instagram stories can really be fun. You can post real-time stories about events or volunteers, which can be really fun and exciting.
5. Get Inspired by a Story You Have Heard
Try to remember the first time you fell in love because of a story. When someone told you that you are the best person on Earth. When someone told you such a beautiful story that you felt like you were unique and special. That story should be the standard for all the other stories you’re going to tell for your nonprofit. Because every story you tell matters.
