3 types of fundraising story that help you get (and keep) donors

Stories power fundraising.

Most people know that.

But there’s an additional piece of knowledge that makes this truth useful: Not all our stories should be the same. Here’s a great post on the distinct types of story, from the Bloomerang Blog, at How To Tell A Compelling Fundraising Story:

1. Unsolved problem story. This is the story you tell when you ask donors to give. It’s the story about a human being facing a problem that donors can help solve. The story is about a person, not the abstract problem. In a sense, this story doesn’t have a resolution. The donor gets to create the resolution by giving. This is not a fun story to tell. But it’s the way you motivate donors to give: You put action in their hands.
2. Solved problem story. When you thank and report back to donors, you tell a very different story: And this story has a satisfying ending. This is how you keep donors. By telling them their part in the unsolved problem story helped bring about a happy ending. (You can even re-tell the unsolved story, now with the resolution.)
3. Donor’s story. This is not usually a separate type of story, but the secret to success for both of the previous story types: You bring the donor into the story. First, you make it very clear they can enter the story and change it for the better. Then, after they give, you let them know they did enter the story and helped it end well.