We hope you’re having fun with our “how-to” series. As you know, there’s always something new to learn. For instance, you could learn about inspiring kids or teens to get involved in your fundraising cause. Alternately, you could discover how to create a press release that will get picked up by the media as you share your story.
Today, we’re talking about how to tell your nonprofit, school, church, or civic group’s story efficiently. As a result, you’ll get more supporters to learn about your cause. And you’ll also increase the fundraising dollars that you receive from them.
Why It’s Important to Tell Your Story
Telling your story well is the essential activity you can do from a fundraising perspective. By telling a good story, you will inspire people to give.
- People need first to make an emotional connection before they connect with your cause rationally.
- Marketing and advertising are all about telling stories. In short, it’s one of the most fundamental ways people communicate with each other.
- Emotion drives 80% of all purchasing decisions, which is followed by logic in support of the decision. And the same holds true for fundraising.
Telling Your Story in a Single Paragraph
Did you ever hear about the elevator pitch? It means being able to convey your story or idea in the amount of time it takes to ride in an elevator when you share it with someone. The ability to tell your story in a single paragraph is similar. In today’s world, people are inundated with information. Meaning, they spend countless hours a day consuming information through the internet, social media, or on the 24-hour news cycle. As a result, there’s information overload.
One of the best exercises to learn how to tell your story well is to start by communicating it in one paragraph. The “less is more” approach helps you make your communications and writing concise and succinct. Further, it helps in making sure everything, from your emails to your web pages, has a similar structure. Here’s how to tell your story in a single paragraph:
Main idea
The first sentence is the bedrock of your message. In other words, you immediately want to engage the reader’s attention. Every day, we work with hundreds of rescued dogs that have nowhere to go were it not for ABC Rescue.
Context for the Story
The second sentence gets crafted to assist the reader in understanding the circumstances that support your main idea. Awesome volunteers make it their mission to rescue dogs and save animals from dangerous and neglectful situations.
Challenge
After, you move to the conflict or problem you want the reader to understand. Moreover, it also helps you support the “ask” in your paragraph. ABC Rescue is a purely volunteer-driven organization, which means we have limited resources to do the work we do.
Case statement or need in your story
The challenge is then follow-up with the statement or need of your organization. Meaning, why you need people to help and support your cause? When the dogs arrive at our volunteer homes, most suffered and need of immediate medical care. And although our vets work at negotiated rates, some of our dogs require extensive medical care. Additionally, we have to cover expenses for food, toys, and grooming.
The ask
Finally, the ask is the closing statement and the pitch about what you want them to do to help you. You can help us by collecting one bag of 25 pairs of gently worn, used, and new shoes in our shoe drive fundraiser and Funds2Orgs will issue us a check based on the overall weight of all the shoes collected.
An example of the story in one paragraph follows below:
A Story in One Paragraph
Every day, we work with hundreds of rescued dogs that have nowhere to go where it not for ABC Rescue. Awesome volunteers make it their mission to rescue dogs and save animals from dangerous and neglectful situations. ABC Rescue is a purely volunteer-driven organization, which means we have limited resources to do the work we do. When the dogs arrive at our volunteer homes, most suffered and need of immediate medical care. And although our vets work at negotiated rates, some of our dogs require extensive medical care. Additionally, we have to cover expenses for food, toys, and grooming. You can help us by collecting one bag of 25 pairs of gently worn, used, and new shoes in our shoe drive fundraiser, and Funds2Orgs will issue us a check based on the overall weight of all the shoes collected.
So, that’s how you share a story in one paragraph!
If you’d like to learn more fun stuff to help you raise money and market your organization, follow us on our YouTube channel, or like our Facebook page.
© 2018 Funds2Orgs. All Rights Reserved.
