Future Fundraising Now

9 questions to ask yourself about the stories you tell

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by

Jeff Brooks
in
  1. How dramatic is it? Is something immediately at stake? We know climate change is a threat. But hearing about a storm surge wiping out a family’s home is a story that gets attention.
  2. Is there a sense of urgency? A family not having enough to pay the rent is sad. A mom having to tell her kids they have to suddenly leave their apartment because the police are there with eviction papers — that’s heart-breaking.
  3. How unique is this story? We are drawn to the unusual. A dog bit a man? Okay. A man bit a dog? Tell me more!
  4. Is connected with a well-known catastrophe? We all heard about the latest devastating storm or quake. Stories from them are especially believable, because we already know about the situation.
  5. What will be the donor’s reaction? You don’t want your readers to think, “Oh well, that’s too bad.” You want them saying, “That’s awful! Why isn’t someone doing something about this?”
  6. Can non-experts relate to it? The more explaining you have to do to make a story understandable, the less emotional power it can have.
  7. Will this story make people feel good about giving? Will their giving help solve the problem the story is about?
  8. Did they really say that? direct quotations from people make stories more powerful. They add color, realism, and human interest.
  9. Are the problem and the solution easy to grasp? Reality is complicated. Stories need to simplify. We tell stories to connect with people’s hearts — not to educate their minds about complex situations.

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    The future of fundraising is not about social media, online video, or SEM. It’s not about any technology, medium, or technique. It’s about donors. If you need to raise funds from donors, you need to study them, respect them, and build everything you do around them. And the future? It’s already here. More.

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    Jeff BrooksJeff Brooks has been serving the nonprofit community for more than 35 years and blogging about it since 2005. He considers fundraising the most noble of pursuits and hopes you’ll join him in that opinion. You can reach him at jeff [at] jeff-brooks [dot] com. More.

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    The future of fundraising is not about social media, online video, or SEM. It’s not about any technology, medium, or technique. It’s about donors. If you need to raise funds from donors, you need to study them, respect them, and build everything you do around them. And the future? It’s already here. More.

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    About the blogger

    Jeff Brooks has been serving the nonprofit community for more than 30 years and blogging about it since 2005. He considers fundraising the most noble of pursuits and hopes you’ll join him in that opinion. You can reach him at jeff [at] jeff-brooks [dot] com.