Missed our recent Fundraising Refreshments webinar on crafting stories around your content? Check it out:
Everyone loves a good story. They evoke emotions that statistics can’t and inspire action and change from motivated audiences. But what’s the importance of storytelling within your fundraising campaigns?
Having an entertaining and moving story can help increase donor retention and donations by engaging with an audience on an emotional level.
Our stories can be told in all shapes and sizes, but here are a few mediums that are commonly used:
- Traditional: In the past, this usually started with direct mail. The story focuses on one specific point to raise donations for one purpose. It’s structured with a beginning, middle and a new beginning, thanks to your organization's fundraising progress.
- Quote: This is a shift into digital storytelling. A quote can tell the entirety of a story and be an attention-grabbing message: “I was given a second chance at life, thanks to _____.”
- Photo: Similar to the quote, the right photo can tell a whole story and captivate its audience.
- Social Media Posts: Using photos and digital copy, a social media post can tell an engaging story. Social media also allows for long-form storytelling that can further an audience's engagement.
But there is more that goes into convincing someone to donate for a greater cause than the medium. In the past, storytelling has followed a structure of four parts:
- Offer: Traditional approaches lead with an offer. The offer determines everything from package to story.
- Packaging: We build the packaging around the offer. What channel are we making the offer in? Does the offer fit best in direct mail? Maybe email?
- Atmospherics: Then we consider atmospherics. Holidays, weather and seasonal changes affect the impact of the message.
- Story: Finally, we search for the perfect story that speaks to the offer and atmospherics. This includes the words, images, quotes and message we are conveying to our audience.
While this format can still work, what if we shifted the structure of our approach to allow our content and our stories to drive our omnichannel strategy?
Senior Vice President and Lead Group Creative Director Billy Vaudry shares more about the power of building content around our stories and omnichannel storytelling in our recent Fundraising Refreshments webinar. Watch the recording above to learn more.