Imagine you have a fundraising story that starts like this:
Fred the Explorer hiked through the jungle, searching for the Lost City. The dense undergrowth to his left rustled. Fred froze. Suddenly the undergrowth exploded into a mass of orange and black — a gigantic tiger hurtled itself Fred, bellowing.
Why are we telling this story? Presumably to give drama and emotional depth to the fundraising piece we’re writing. And it’s a promising start.
What should come next?
Your writer’s instinct would probably say we should tell what happened next and resolve the story. That would be a satisfying story arc. The kind that most competent storytellers do all the time. Something like this:
Fred, acting on instinct, ducked at the last possible moment. The tiger sailed over him and somersaulted off the cliff behind Fred.
But maybe you shouldn’t do that in this case.
Because when you’re asking donors to give, a resolved story can let all the air out of the tires. Emotionally you’ve signaled, loud and clear, that nothing needs to be done. And emotion is where the real action is. The donor isn’t needed, because everything is taken care of. They may enjoy the story, but you haven’t pulled them into the story.
That’s the whole purpose of the story: To invite the donor in.
To do that, you need to know what exactly you’d like the donor to do. It might be something like this:
That’s the powerful thing about fundraising stories. They aren’t just stories about random other people in random situations.
They are stories the reader can choose to enter. And be part of the outcome.
Thing is, if you have Fred the Explorer’s story to tell, it is because Fred survived and came back to tell you what happened. That’s the reality.
Fred and other Explorers face the danger of tiger attacks every day. Promising leads to the Lost City vanish in an instant when a tiger gobbles up an Explorer. For just $18 you can supply an Explorer like Fred with enough Tiger Repellant Spray to keep him safe for an entire expedition…
If you’re thinking that going directly from the tiger, mid-leap at Fred and the ask paragraph messes up the story arc, you are completely right.
It breaks the story arc into two pieces.
And only people who donate — who enter the story — get to read the whole thing! Because you’ll tell them in your thank-you letter and/or newsletter.
Because fundraising isn’t just storytelling. It’s real-life adventures for the people who choose to get involved. A choose your own adventure — but real!
I should mention that if your story is as action-based as Fred the Explorer’s, it might be smart to actually tell the ending. Not doing that would be obvious teasing, which is unfair. But don’t dwell on the resolution; don’t treat it with storytelling flair. Just make it something like “Fred was lucky and escaped unharmed, but…” [And then go to the ask.]
Every writer’s instinct you have will protest against separating the two parts of the story arc. We all want to tell complete stories. Unfinished stories violate our sense of what a story is.
But unfinished stories raise a lot more funds. Because they move the story from a piece of entertainment to an invitation to change the world.
More on Storytelling for Fundraisers.
Jeff 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.
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