Social Media and Your Non-Profit

When clients and potential clients ask me to help them with their social media, I often groan (silently) and wonder what I should say. Your social media tells a story about your organization. Are you telling the story of an active and dynamic organization that is mobilizing and engaging supporters in the passion of their mission? Or are you telling the story of an organization that would prefer your supporter hand over their money and let you get on with your work?

Social Media is not just another leg on your marketing stool. It's a whole different seat at the table.

The problem most non-profit organizations and for-profit companies have with social media is the social part. This isn't old-school, get-your-message-out promotion… Creating a successful social media presence requires you to actually interact with your customers, constituents and supporters.

Which is why I cringe when nonprofits ask me to bid on writing their social media content. I write my own tweets, Facebook posts and LinkedIn updates for my consulting practice, and I really believe it's critical that you have an organizational insider conducting your social media.

It's easy for a consultant to come in and say something like, "You should make sure you tweet your message XX times per day." or "Engage your supporters in conversations on Facebook."

But an outsider will have a much harder time creating engaging social media content and building authentic relationships than an insider will have.

Social media is another way of telling a story -- the story of how your organization functions on a daily basis. How do you treat supporters and staff? How do you view your mission? How nimble are you when news breaks or a crisis rises up? Social media is a big plate-glass window into all of these areas.

And an outside consultant -- even one specializing in social media -- cannot deliver that authenticity you need. A consultant will never, for example, be able to walk out of an energizing meeting and tell your donors and supporters about the excitement in the air around the office.

When you have an actual social media professional leading your SM efforts, you'll get

• Someone with their finger on the pulse of the organization.
• Someone who can seamlessly integrate the rest of your marketing, communications and fundraising plan into your social media.
• Someone who can explain social media to those in your organization who might not understand what it can do…and what it can't.
• Someone who can be the "voice" of your organization on a ground level.

Better yet, make sure your social media person also has a working knowledge of donor-centered fundraising, so they can give your SM-savvy supporters a more personalized, high-touch experience.

Of course, social media isn't (yet) a fundraising powerhouse. But like fundraising, social media is about creating and nurturing relationships. And investing in key relationships is something that all successful nonprofits are committed to.

Social media isn't going away, and it is increasingly the way people are checking out the organizations they decide to support. What are you doing to make sure your social media plan is as engaging and authentic as it can be?

Telling Stories

I tend to take a workwoman’s approach to writing: Get a theme, write to the theme, revise and polish, let go and move on to next topic. As someone who has spent the last 15+ years writing to deadlines, that work ethic has kept organic broccoli in my fridge and a roof over my head. But as my husband would be eager to tell you, I am not by nature such a practical soul. At root, I am a dreamer. Which I think is at least part of why I choose to make my living with stories.

As my friend and colleague at ARC Communications, Amy Blake, pointed out, we all tell ourselves stories every day. Sometimes those stories are heroic, as when we think about the deadlines we met, the performance evaluations we exceeded, the kind words we spoke when they were most needed.

And sometimes those stories are less positive, as when we criticize ourselves or others, or lament what might have been.

In fact, because we’ve been telling stories as a species for 100,000 years, our brains are hard-wired to organize information that way. We can’t help but see stories all around us, nearly every minute of the day. Our very histories – personal and global – are all organized around and passed along as stories.

Love stories, bedtime stories, campfire stories, origin stories, stories we tell around the dinner table, children’s stories, adult stories, erotic stories, traditional stories, fables, fairy tales and myths…the list goes on and on.

It’s fascinating!

I think we sometimes become distanced from our own stories when we try so hard to quantify and prove or disprove everything that crosses our paths. Don’t get me wrong – I love science and data… for the stories they can tell.

 But it's all too easy to forget that every conclusion we draw is a story we tell ourselves. I know that when I'm writing -- whether it's an appeal for funds or a blog post or a personal email -- I am often so immersed in the information I'm trying to convey that I forget to just let my story unfold.

For the last few fundraising letters I've written, I've added a step to my process: I'm taking the time to reconnect with the larger story I'm trying to tell. I edit to let the story itself convey the information, rather than simply presenting the information. It's a subtle but powerful difference, and ultimately, I think it has made for much stronger pieces that pursue the core truths about my organizations' missions.

And let me be clear. I'm not talking about just adding a story from your program staff and hoping it illustrates your point. No, I'm looking at a broader definition of "story," one that is more holistic and that tells your donors who you really are as an organization.

Of course, I won't know how the story of this experiment ends for a few weeks, until the data on these mailings tells its story. But for now, I'm doing my best to cultivate my clients' organization-wide stories and let those stories do the hard work for me.

What stories are you telling in your fundraising efforts? Are they narrow and specific? Or broad and holistic? Do they emerge organically from your process, or do they require cultivation?

Is Your Board Engaged?

One of the most common refrains I hear from my friends and colleagues in the nonprofit arena is "I'm just not sure how to make my Board understand fundraising!" One executive director friend dreads his quarterly report to his Board -- not because his organization isn't meeting its fundraising goals, but because he feels like his Board holds him to impossibly high standards and is always disappointed. I think every nonprofit should endeavor to recruit at least one fundraising professional onto their Board. Having that insider who can bridge the gap between the staff and the Board is so beneficial to both groups that I've always been surprised it isn't standard practice.

But until that happens, there are several key ways you can engage your Board in fundraising and help them understand how to strengthen your organization and its fundraising efforts.

First, you need to understand where your Board Members are coming from. Who are they? What is their background? Why are they involved with your organization? What activities spark their interests and passion? What stories do they tell about their involvement with your nonprofit? Understanding your audience is key to persuading people to give to your organization, and it's key to persuading your Board members to engage, as well.

Once you understand broadly and deeply who your Board is, then you can start to use their language, tap into their concerns and hopes, and create a culture of fundraising throughout your organization.

Cultivate that culture is by communicating openly and often with your Board members.

• Use Storytelling to tell them about the impact they're having in your community.
• Set clear expectations -- in other words, tell them what needs to be done and give them the tools to do that work.
• Set aside time for one-on-one meetings with Board Members, and use that time to listen to their stories. Ask them what first excited them about your organization, and what their goals are for the next year.
• Thank them often -- and personally -- for their commitment and participation. And ask them to personally thank your donors. This circle of gratitude makes everyone feel valued, needed and appreciated -- and makes your mission possible.

I also love this handy info-graphic on increasing Board engagement, which outlines practical, achievable steps for both smaller and larger nonprofit organizations.

Above all, it's critical to remember that you're all on the same side. You may come at the problem you're trying to solve from different perspectives -- and that's great because it means you'll cover all the bases -- but you are all working for a common goal: the mission of your organization.

I do not think that means what you think it means

Earlier this year, my friend and colleague Amy Blake posted a fantastic musing about storytelling and her concern that it has evolved (or devolved) from a valuable tool in the fundraiser's toolbox to a meaningless buzzword-du-jour. As I've  made my year-end rounds, I've noticed that it's not just storytelling that's getting the magic bullet treatment. As I've mentioned before, right now is a fantastic time to be a fundraiser. There's so much information out there. But be careful when you're implementing all that free advice because there are nuances to using story-telling, donor-centricity, compelling emotion and all the other keys to great fundraising. And those nuances could mean the difference between a blockbuster campaign and a dud.

Being donor-centric doesn't mean putting yourself in your donor's shoes.

Because you can't. You know too much, you've taken the red pill (The blue one? I can't remember.), you're in too deep. You're already sold on the issues you care about, and it's really hard to be objective enough to take a step back and understand how those issues appear to your donor.

Instead, try to remember the last time you tried to learn something new. How did it feel to not know anything about a subject? What key pieces of information did you need to help you understand the subject and what was required of you? What kind of encouragement did you need? What spurred you on to learn more?

Even the most devoted donors are not as well versed in your issues as you are. Being donor-centric means understanding what your donor needs -- emotionally and intellectually -- to spur them to give.

Storytelling is not a magic bullet.

I'll tell you a secret: storytelling will not singlehandedly save your fundraising.

Donors do not read stories and automatically open their wallets. In fact, stories without context not only don't help you fundraise, they actively hurt your fundraising efforts. And sometimes, even stories with context don't work in fundraising -- if they're not the stories your donor wants to hear.

One of my clients launched a big storytelling push last year. It bombed. In reviewing what went wrong, we realized we weren't telling the donors the stories they wanted to hear. We were telling them the stories we wanted to tell. The difference cost the organization a lot of money.

Guess what? How your donor helps your cause IS a story. Two lines of copy addressing what's at stake IS a story. And often it's those stories-that-don't-look-like-stories that are the most effective in fundraising.

You need the right kind of emotion.

One of the biggest mistakes I see with organizations is confusing pathos for emotion. I feel sorry for a great many people and sad about a great many situations in this world. But I don't -- I can't -- fix them all. Emotion is no good to a fundraiser if it doesn't move a donor to act.

Anger is a prime motivator to action. Outrage makes us jump out of our chairs and get things done. Positive emotions like hope and gratitude are also super-motivators. Pathos, sympathy and sorrow might push people to act, but they're far more likely to  make donors feel overwhelmed or depressed.

One of my favorite things that Tom Ahern says about fundraisers is that it's our job to "deliver joy." There's no joy in a sad story if it doesn't make the donor feel like he or she can do something to alleviate the sadness.

Get that information -- and go deep

The volume of information we have and our almost-instantaneous ability to get it can sometimes encourage a broad but shallow understanding. But our fundraising can be so much more effective if we deepen our knowledge. Track what moves your donors, continue to refine that knowledge through tests, and listen to what your donors say about your organization, your cause, and the other things that interest them.

In the end, it is your donors -- not experts like me! -- who will tell you how best to fundraise.

Is That Really True? Storytelling Ethics Part 2

Well vacation and a mountain of work came between two pieces I had hoped to post a little closer together, but I do want to follow up on my earlier post on storytelling ethics, with a set of basic rules to follow for nonprofits. Those rules are a great start, but I don't think that's the end of the discussion at all. Because when I was asked the question, it brought up a lot of other, related ideas about storytelling, ethics and the nature of truth and fiction that I think are valuable to explore.

What is truth?

If you work for a nonprofit of any size, you probably see hundreds of stories coming through your organization each year. And I'm willing to bet that many, many of these stories have a commonality to them that can, sometimes, make them seem indistinguishable from each other.

It's probably easy for you to generalize about the people you serve: "Our clients are predominantly [insert three adjectives that describe the typical constituent here]."

So is that generalization true?

What if you put the generalization into story form by creating an amalgam? Could you give it a name, a set of circumstances and a story arc and still call it "true"?

I've worked for organizations that had no problem with this definition of the truth, believing that slavish adherence to the details of the stories in their organizations undermined the true spirit of their work. I've also worked for organizations that would never, ever consider using an amalgam, certain that it was lying to their donors.

Truth in Fiction

It may be because I am a fiction writer as well as a copywriter that I fall more into the first camp than the second.

Think about memoir for a second. Memoir is generally considered to be a form of nonfiction. But memoirists also take liberties with dates, places, names and timelines in order to create a more cohesive story, while staying true to the overarching themes of their work. Looking at it another way, memoirists lie to preserve the truth.

And some of the "truest" writing I've read is fiction. Sure, the facts may not be there, but truths of what it means to be human are often found in fiction, and can serve to inspire as well as -- or sometimes better than -- nonfiction.

But...

But we're talking about nonprofit storytelling here, not memoir, not fiction. Making up stories whole cloth and pretending they actually happened in your organization will not serve your purpose well.

Lying is a crummy thing to do to your donors. It betrays their trust and is an extremely poor way to repay their generosity.

Still, it is extremely easy to turn a compelling story into a boring collection of facts. And while your donors never deserve to be lied to, you certainly don't want to put them to sleep.

So as I mentioned earlier, use the constraints of the truth to up your creative game. Remember to hit as many of the five senses as you can. If you're interviewing someone, really listen to what they're saying about how they felt so you can convey that to your donors.

Your organization's storytelling ethics deserve careful thought and consideration. Make sure you can justify your stance -- to your board, to your employees, and above all, to your donors.

And, as always, be creative about how you tow that line. Nonprofit storytelling should be about taking your donors on a journey with you, not just about telling a story and asking for money.

Is That Really True? Storytelling Ethics Part 1

I've been quiet recently -- a combination of end-of-the-school-year craziness and looming deadlines. Now, summer seems on the verge of appearing here in the Pacific Northwest, and in between sunny runs by the reservoir and neighborhood cookouts, I'm going to try to put in a few more appearances here at the blog. During the non-stop action of the last month, I've been spending a lot of time mulling over a few really interesting questions someone recently asked me about storytelling ethics.

How true does a story we use in fundraising have to be? Can we change names? Can we fudge details or timelines? Do people ever make up stories entirely?

I gave a fairly evasive answer: how literally truthful you are in your organizational storytelling is up to each organization to decide.

But I was curious how others might answer that same question. As I began researching the issue, I started contemplating ideas of truth and fiction and where we draw the line between the two.

Let me say up front that I still don't have a better answer to the original question. I do think it's a discussion each organization needs to have internally and then convey to any consultants or writers they bring on board.

But I did find some helpful basic guidelines to follow as you have these internal conversations.

A Basic Ethical Stance

In my initial burst of research, I came across this article by Joanne Fritz on the ethics of changing details in stories. She interviews two noted experts -- Lisa Sargent of Sargent Communications and Pamela Grow of Simple Development Systems. Both take a firm stance on changing details, agreeing that it is sometimes necessary to protect the identities, particularly of young people, of those whose stories you want to share.

They urge nonprofits to take three key steps: get written permission, alter or hide key personal details, and be transparent with your donors.

This is great advice, particularly for nonprofits working directly with clients, such as a nonprofit helping clothe foster children, or a drug addiction support organization, for two examples. Activist groups and other large-scale groups may be gathering stories that are of a less personal nature, so they may not have to worry about protecting identities as much.

But from what I see in the mail that comes across my desk, the toughest thing about these standards is the transparency portion. Sure, you can simply add a disclaimer into your letter. But please be clever and creative about how you do that.

Because as soon as you say, "some of this story isn't 100% true" your donor is going to stop reading your pitch and start examining your story to see what details sound made up.

And once you lose 'em, you lose the chance of a gift.

If you need to use a disclaimer, weave it into your story. Instead of a an asterisk next to a message saying "Details have been changed to protect identities" try appealing to your donor's sense of empathy:

"Joanie was really nervous about people learning her secrets. But she knows how important it is to get her story out there, so she's agreed to let me share it with you, as long as I protect her privacy."

Adhering to strict ethical rules does not have to kill your creativity, nor should it. Always try to push yourself to find the most organic and natural way to adhere to your standards, and your nonprofit copywriting will shine that much brighter.

The rules I mention above are a great starting point. But I think storytelling ethics deserve more thoughtful consideration. So please check in later this week for more thoughts on storytelling, ethics and where (and how!) to draw the line in your own organization.

All Aboard! Use storytelling to unite and inspire

I had the good fortune to present at the Willamette Valley Development Officers fundraising conference in Portland, OR earlier this month. My friend and business partner Amy Blake and I debuted Super Storytelling, our comprehensive how-to on storytelling and story-collecting for nonprofits. (If you attended that session, thank you so much!) You can see the slides from our presentation here, and we hope to offer the presentation again live and on the web soon. (Stay tuned here and at the ARC Communications website for details!)

In the course of preparing for the presentation, I did a lot of research about the power of story to get the word out, educate and inspire. And since there wasn't time in the presentation to talk about all the exciting things I discovered, I thought I'd do a little brain dump here.

One of my favorite resources was Story Proof: the science behind the startling power of story by Kendall Haven. In the first couple of pages, I learned that people have been sharing stories for 100,000 years. (Not being up on my pre-history, I was pretty impressed humans had been around that long!) All that storytelling has left our brains hardwired to learn through stories and to think about life in story terms.

Haven spends a lot of time in the book going through actual neuroscience studies that clearly show that we learn better, engage more and remember details through stories. Psych studies back this up, too. And if that isn't enough for you, he includes dozens of anecdotes showing just how well it works. From schools, to corporations, to the World Bank, people have discovered -- by accident and by painstaking work -- the power of storytelling.

For nonprofits, one passage in particular stuck out to me:

"Want to develop a sense of belonging and buy-in in your organization? Collect and refine the stories of your group members that best embody the attitudes and outlook you want to promote. Actively tell these stories and encourage others to create and share their own."

If you want to get your donors to remember you, if you want them to understand and appreciate the importance of your work, and above all, if you want them to give, all the statistics in the world aren't going to work for you as well as one good story.

Make stories a key part of your fundraising strategy. Engage everyone -- fundraising folks, program people, volunteers, board members, execs, constituents and even donors -- in collecting and sharing stories. Value all contributions and share stories wherever and whenever you can.

Once you do, you'll find -- as Haven reports in anecdote after anecdote -- that the effort pays off in remarkable ways. People love stories, and when you foster a culture of storytelling, it builds on itself. People become more engaged and committed to your mission, and they pass on that engagement and commitment to newcomers.

Bottom line: Create a community of storytellers in and around your organization, and you'll inspire your staff to greater heights, lead your donors to greater giving, and ultimately, enhance the effectiveness of the critical work your organization performs.

Fighting the Formula

The other day, one of my Twitter pals -- Kevin Monroe from X Factor Consulting -- asked me what copywriting tips I like to share with fellow consultants. It wasn't something I'd actually considered much before he asked, since a) I work in my kitchen and b) I'm usually on the receiving end of writing advice. But his question did touch on something that I have been thinking about off and on over the last couple of years. During the course of my 14-year copywriting career, I've dabbled in other kinds of writing, including publishing several feature articles and neighborhood profiles in The Oregonian and having a short story appear in VoiceCatcher.

During times when multiple deadlines were looming, I wondered if that moonlighting was hurting my main money-making endeavor, and I have downplayed my extracurricular writing in my professional life.  But I now think all that second-guessing was a mistake.

In fact, I think one of the reasons I have been so successful in my copywriting is because I have a richer web of writing experience to pull from.

Fight the formula

I have written hundreds of direct mail letters, and there is definitely a formula for the successful ones. But in following a formula you should never become formulaic. The minute you do, the letters you pen become stale, lacking the passion and verve that are absolutely necessary to convince people to give their money to your cause.

When I feel myself treading an all-too-familiar path in my copywriting, I know it's time to fight the formula. So I take another look with my fiction-writer's glasses on. Are there themes I can weave through this letter more effectively? Is there a character begging to leap off the page?

Then I put on my features-writer glasses. How can I make my descriptions more vivid? Are there sights, sounds, tastes and smells that would make the issues in this letter come alive for the reader? Perhaps I'm rambling and need to tighten everything up with a journalist's editing eye.

Let's face it, there is a LOT of writing advice out there, and good writing is good writing, whether you're penning a direct mail letter, a slick advertisement, or the Great American Novel. Sure, there are degrees, but the rules are the same: use action verbs, aim for clarity, be as specific as you can, tickle all the senses...

But knowing the rules and using them well are two different things.

Tap into a different part of your brain!

Try writing poetry to hone your ability to use imagery to make a point. Write a short story to put yourself in a different person's shoes and sharpen your storytelling. Become a blogger to learn how to encapsulate big ideas and personal feelings in 500 words. Try your hand at literary criticism or movie reviews to learn how to identify weak spots in your writing and in others'.

Above all, love writing, all writing. Play with language, revel in how words get put together, rejoice in how they can connect, inspire, educate, and move.

And don't just write. Read! Starting with this article about the business benefits -- it's scientific, people! -- of reading fiction.

Storytelling 101

 

You've no doubt heard about the importance of storytelling to nonprofits. As a writer with an English Lit. degree, I love a good story, and one of the best parts about my job is uncovering those stories and sharing them with my clients' donors.

But what makes a good story? And how do you tell your story in a way that moves your donors to give?

A Story Has a Destination

A story can be as simple as "I went to the store. I bought three grapefruit. I returned home." But how inspiring is that?

You want your story to arc from the kernel that starts it all, through the challenges in the middle, to a satisfying resolution. Once you've written your story, you should be able to point to each section and see how the details you've chosen propel the reader forward.

Your story should always arrive somewhere. Most of the time, this destination will be different from the place you started, but sometimes you'll end up in the same place you began. Either way is fine, but there must be some destination.

A Story Has Significance

When you arrive at your story's destination, it means something. A lesson was learned, a decision was made, an epiphany occurred -- something about your destination offers your audience some true, deep knowledge they didn't have at the beginning.

For most nonprofit organizations, the stories will often be about how your work helped a person. So when you're telling that story, think about how your work impacted that person's life. What would have happened without your intervention? How were minds and hearts opened? Ask your reader to imagine what would happen if this story were repeated with other people.

What does it mean that your organization exists?

A Story Helps Us Understand Our World

Since the beginning of time, people have been telling stories as a way of explaining the unexplainable in our world. You can harness this power in your own storytelling.

One good story explains who your organization is helping, what innovative tools you're using, why your organization's mission is important, how you're using your resources to make a difference, and how your donors can help. A well crafted story will give your donors everything they need to understand why they should give to you.

A Story Helps Create Community

Doubt the power of a good story to unite us? Consider the Twilight phenomenon.

When you knock it out of the park, your story will get read and passed around...it will get noticed. And those who notice it will have that bond that comes from shared experience and understanding. Telling the stories of the work you do to your donors is one of the most effective ways to connect your donors to your organization and keep them giving for years to come.

Stories have power, and the better you learn to tell them the more power you'll have.

Check out the Mercy Corps blog for great examples of nonprofit storytelling. And if you want more on the art of storytelling, I loved this article from Jane Friedman's blog.