Maybe you've felt it before. That moment when you're face-to-face with a potential major donor, or standing before your board, or speaking to a community group, and despite your preparation, passion and expertise, you can see their attention drifting. You know your organization's work is transformative. You can recite the statistics. You understand the impact. But somehow, in that moment, the magic of your mission isn't communicated as vividly as you hoped it would be.
I've been there and that is why I’m excited to share some reflections from a book I have read that has helped shape my approach to storytelling. Karen Eber's book, The Perfect Story: How to Tell Stories That Inspire Action and Get Results offers science-based frameworks that are easy to apply to how you tell stories about your organization’s impact and mission in action.
The Neuroscience of Storytelling: Why Your Brain Lights Up
Eber, a TED speaker and storytelling expert, dives deep into the neuroscience behind storytelling, and this research helps inform the ways we can communicate and improve our storytelling.
When we present data alone, only language processing areas of the brain activate. But with stories, our entire brain lights up as sensory cortex, motor cortex, and emotional centers engage simultaneously.
This explains why donors respond to stories about one person you've helped, while remaining unmoved by statistics about thousands. Your donors' brains literally experience your mission through story in ways data alone cannot achieve.
Data Doesn't Change Behavior, Emotions Do
This insight from Eber's work is key and challenges the common approach of leading with statistics. While data provides important context and validation, it's the emotional connection through experiences and storytelling that actually motivates people to donate, volunteer, or advocate for a cause.
Four Essential Stories to Have Ready
- The Purpose Story: Your organization's "why" in 30 seconds or less
- The Origin Story: How and why your organization came to be
- The Impact Story: Tangible examples of transformed lives
- The Case for Support: The story that tells what your organization is doing and why it matters; why your organization deserves philanthropic support. Have multiple versions ready, from comprehensive documents to brief talking points so that everyone in your organization can articulate the story confidently.
Preparing these four narrative types of stories creates a toolkit that can be adapted for any audience or setting.
Pairing Stories with Data
We should also remember that stories and data aren't competing approaches, they're complementary tools that work best in tandem. Data provides credibility and context, while stories provide meaning and emotional connection.
As nonprofit communicators, we often fall into one of two traps: overwhelming our audiences with statistics or relying solely on anecdotal stories. In her book, Eber suggests a more powerful approach:
- Use stories to make your data meaningful and memorable
- Use data to provide scale and context for your stories
- Help your audience visualize information through narratives
By helping your supporters literally "see" your impact through the combination of visual data and emotional storytelling, you create understanding at both intellectual and emotional levels, a powerful combination for motivating action.
Making Stories Accessible to Everyone in Your Organization
Storytelling isn't just for leadership. Develop this skill throughout your organization. When board members, staff, and volunteers share authentic perspectives, they collectively communicate your impact more powerfully than any single voice.
Quick Action Plan
As you think about implementing these ideas at your organization, consider starting with these steps:
- Create a story bank: Collect stories systematically from across your organization
- Develop a "mission moment" practice at meetings where someone shares a brief impact story
- Practice your purpose story until you can deliver it confidently in any setting
- Involve your board members to share their personal connection to your mission
- Incorporate stories into all communications, not just fundraising appeals
- Balance data with emotion: When presenting statistics, always pair them with a story that makes the numbers meaningful
- Visualize your data: Use simple visual storytelling techniques to help supporters see patterns and meaning in your impact data
The next time you’re sitting down to plan or discuss communication strategies, remember this: When you want people to remember your mission, share a statistic. When you want them to feel your mission and be moved to support it, tell a story.
What story will you tell today? And how will you help your supporters not just understand your impact but feel it!
Great ideas come from unexpected places. The DBD team is diving into the books, articles, and thought pieces that are shaping our perspective. This month, we're sharing the insights that are challenging our assumptions and inspiring new approaches to common challenges for nonprofits.
