Telling Your Story to Motivate Donors and Advocates for Your Cause

1. Once Upon A Time…
2. Telling Your Story and The Importance of Storytelling
3. Armbruster Consulting Group Change What Is Possible. We are problem solvers, opportunity seekers and innovators. We provide strategy, program execution, and everything in between. It’s not just what we do, it’s who we are.
4. Agenda • Importance of Storytelling • The Good, The Bad and The Ugly • How to Build Your Story – Components of a Great Story – Story Commandments • What’s Your Story? • Make an Impact! • Questions & Answers • Resources
5. There are no magic wands, no hidden tricks, and no secret handshakes that can bring you immediate success, but with time, energy, and determination you can get there. Darren Rowse Founder Problogger
6. The Importance of Storytelling • Make a connection • Inspires action • Create change • Anticipation • Desire to get involved • Makes us feel _____________ • Be heard • Stand out
7. Stories engage people at every level – not just in their minds but in their emotions, values and imaginations, which are the drivers of real change. So if we want to transform society, we must learn to tell – and listen to – a new set of stories about the world we want to create. Simon Hodges
8. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly The Bad The Economist posted an article about the lack of sanitation and bathroom facilities in India, citing such facts like: • 130 million households in India lacking toilets • 600 million people in India who have no toilets The article continues also refers to India's goals of ending the problem by 2019. The entire tone of the article is determined by its first two paragraphs, and it feels impersonal and academic. It is a great source of information if you were looking for large numbers and as a consumer, did not want to get emotionally involved in the problem. The Ugly An NPR article--posted 10 days before The Economist article--led with the story of two Indian girls who were assaulted and killed. They lacked access to toilets and had to go to a field at night to relieve themselves. The article then follows with quotes from people involved with the girls as well as an anecdote of a blossoming entrepreneur who is trying to solve the problem by installing toilets all over the country.
9. The Good • Merge the two stories • After starting the story with the two young girls, reference some of the statistics and large numbers referenced in The Economist article • Establish the tone early on • Provide perspective and a sense that something can be done to create change • Encourage action and emotional investment
10. HOW TO BUILD YOUR STORY
11. Components of a Great Story • Central theme • Strong three dimensional characters who change over time • Confined space • Protagonist on a quest • Antagonist bent on stopping the hero • An arch – it’s getting better or worse • Conflict
12. Story Commandments • Know the punchline • Affirm that lives have meaning • Make the story worth their time • Give them something to fill in • Pay attention to the order of your story • Build anticipation
13. WHAT’S YOUR STORY?
14. Let’s Give ‘Em Something to Talk About • One sentence describing your organization – Name of organization – Who we impact – What we do 14
15. Burden of Proof • For each statement you make, have a minimum of 2 proof points • Ex: Since 1958 1. We launched the first-ever hospital mercy ship in partnership with the military and the US government 2. Since 1958 we have provided health resources and training in over 125 countries • Ex: … to the world’s most vulnerable men, women and children 1. Each year, nearly 7 million children under 5 years of age die from diseases, while over 500,000 women die in childbirth annually; yet most of these deaths are preventable. Our programs focus on teaching mothers and caregivers on proper prenatal care, how to keep infants and children healthy, and when to seek care at a health facility. 2. In the aftermath of the devastating earthquake that shook Haiti in January 2010, Project HOPE sent more than 100 medical volunteers – many aboard USNS Comfort, the U.S. Navy hospital ship – and delivered more than $60 million of donated medicines and medical supplies.
16. Communicate Your Vision • Explain plans for the future • Prove ability to fulfill plans and deliver changes • Share what you hope to raise and how you came to that number • Share why you NEED the money • Ask for advice and input!
17. Know Your ROI/SROI • What are the outcomes you will use to measure success • How many people will be directly AND indirectly impacted • Show results to date • Facts, figures, stories
18. Tell Me Something I Don’t Know • What can you tell people that they couldn’t learn anywhere else? – Intimate knowledge of your cause – Insights into your community
19. YOUR TURN
20. Remember… • What is your theme? • Who is your main character/the protagonist? • Who or what is the antagonist? • Where does the story take place? • What information should be left out to help build anticipation and interest? • What is the arch… better or worse? • Where is the pain point, the need, the conflict?
21. Workshop 1. Write your story 2. Share stories with your table 3. Provide feedback, exchange ideas, and learn 4. Revise your story 5. Select one story from each table to present to the room 30 MINUTES
22. SHARE YOUR STORY
23. Final Deliverable • Create a Message Map – Our Vision, Mission, and Goals – Our Priorities and Strategies –Our Story – Key Talking Points – Proof Points – Target Audiences (messaging by audience)
24. MAKE AN IMPACT!
25. Share Your Story • Make an emotional connection and stay top of mind • Tell three people your story and ask for feedback • Ask three people familiar with the organization to tell their story – How is it different? What works or doesn’t work? • Review your marketing collateral, email templates, and website to see if they tell your story • Create opportunities to share your story – Networking events, donor meetings, corporate presentations, staff meetings, advocacy outreach, etc.
26. Relationships • Relationships will outlast jobs, businesses, locations and more • “To Serve is to Lead” – Help others fulfill their dreams – Mentor and share your life lessons • Seek out smart, creative, driven people and spend as much time as possible with them • Get ‘a reputation’… in a good way!
27. The Basics • Have strong written and verbal communications • Understand your Emotional Intelligence • Be self-aware and constantly seeking improvement • Learn how to take feedback
28. The Power of A Great Story Caine’s Arcade
29. 29 …as you’ve noticed, people don’t want to be sold. What people do want is news and information about things they care about. Larry Weber Author Marketing to the Social Web
30. 72 Hour Challenge • What will you do in the next 72 hours with the information you have learned this morning? ChangeLoseKeep
31. Questions and Answers
32. 32 Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can. John Wesley
33. Resources • Ted.com • Referral of a Lifetime (Tim Templeton) • Emotional Intelligence (Daniel Coleman) • Winning the Story Wars ( Jonah Sachs) • Wired for Story (Lisa Cron)
34. Contact me: Rachel Armbruster President Armbruster Consulting Group, Inc. 512.944.3417 rachel@armbrusterconsulting.com www.linkedin.com/rachelkarmbruster @rarmbruster THANK YOU!

Hinweis der Redaktion

5 mins
"Nobody cares about storage," said the woman standing up at the Word of Mouth Marketing Association conference at a question-and-answer session four years ago. "What possible stories would people tell about us?"
I was sitting on the other side of the room and knew this was an opportunity I couldn't refuse to share a story. I stood up and replied:
"Storage saved my marriage! You see, I'm the kind of person that likes to save everything I've ever had--my old baseball-card collection, my science project from sixth grade, college textbooks, everything. My wife saves nothing. If it weren't for our storage, we'd be in big trouble.
"It's not about the product," I continued. "It's about how it makes people feel and telling great stories!"
I've always believed in the adage, "Tell, don't sell." Nobody likes to be sold to, but everyone loves a good story. (If you don't believe me, look at the popularity of the movie business, the ultimate storytellers.)
Because everybody loves a good story, if you want to sell your product to customers, your vision to investors, or your ideas to the world, you've got to recognize the power and importance of great storytelling. We recently launched storytellit, a free tool to help you tell your business's stories across the social Web. Check it out, and start telling your stories today.
In the meantime, here are 13 quotes on storytelling to help inspire you!
"Stories are a communal currency of humanity." --Tahir Shah, in Arabian Nights
"Great stories happen to those who can tell them." --Ira Glas
"The engineers of the future will be poets." --Terence McKenna
"The human species thinks in metaphors and learns through stories." --Mary Catherine Bateson
"Sometimes reality is too complex. Stories give it form." --Jean Luc Godard
"Story is a yearning meeting an obstacle." --Robert Olen Butler
"If you're going to have a story, have a big story, or none at all." --Joseph Campbell
"Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it." --Hannah Arendt
"The stories we tell literally make the world. If you want to change the world, you need to change your story. This truth applies both to individuals and institutions." --Michael Margolis
"Those who tell the stories rule the world." --Hopi American Indian proverb
"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you." --Maya Angelou
"There's always room for a story that can transport people to another place." --J.K. Rowling
"Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today." --Robert McKee
Robert McKee may have said that storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today, but I'd say that storytelling has always been the best tool to communicate ideas, persuade others, and get what you want. That woman at the marketing conference turned out to be an employee of Extra Space Storage, by the way, a publicly traded company that's been a Likeable client for the last three years.
Tell, don't sell.
Stories are authentic human experiences. Stories leap frog the technology and bring us to the core of experience, as any good storyteller (transmedia or otherwise) knows. There are several psychological reasons why stories are so powerful.
Stories have always been a primal form of communication. They are timeless links to ancient traditions, legends, archetypes, myths, and symbols. They connect us to a larger self and universal truths.
Stories are about collaboration and connection. They transcend generations, they engage us through emotions, and they connect us to others. Through stories we share passions, sadness, hardships and joys. We share meaning and purpose. Stories are the common ground that allows people to communicate, overcoming our defenses and our differences. Stories allow us to understand ourselves better and to find our commonality with others.
Stories are how we think. They are how we make meaning of life. Call them schemas, scripts, cognitive maps, mental models, metaphors, or narratives. Stories are how we explain how things work, how we make decisions, how we justify our decisions, how we persuade others, how we understand our place in the world, create our identities, and define and teach social values.
Stories provide order. Humans seek certainty and narrative structure is familiar, predictable, and comforting. Within the context of the story arc we can withstand intense emotions because we know that resolution follows the conflict. We can experience with a safety net.
Stories are how we are wired. Stores take place in the imagination. To the human brain, imagined experiences are processed the same as real experiences. Stories create genuine emotions, presence (the sense of being somewhere), and behavioral responses.
Stories are the pathway to engaging our right brain and triggering our imagination. By engaging our imagination, we become participants in the narrative. We can step out of our own shoes, see differently, and increase our empathy for others. Through imagination, we tap into creativity that is the foundation of innovation, self-discovery and change.
3 min
We’re still hardwired to learn better if someone’s words have meaning and emotion to them (proven with science!) because the use of narrative helps our brain focus. That’s because the neurons that fire when we’re listening to a story are the same ones that’d fire if we were actually doing what’s happening in the story. aul Jarvis is a Web designer and bestselling author, who’s obsessed with nature and hairless rats. His latest book, Everything I Know, is a guide to freelancing as a creative professional.

2 min
Both examples of these can be seen with the recent case of open defecation in India. This has become a serious problem that has been given a considerable amount of media attention. The way in which this story is presented, and in particular how they start, influences the entire tone of the story.
On the macro side, The Economist posted an article about this problem in India, citing such facts like 130 million households in India lacking toilets and 600 million people in India who have no toilets. The article continues also refers to India's goals of ending the problem by 2019. While this article then goes on to refer to the anecdote that the NPR article leads with, the entire tone of the article is determined by its first two paragraphs, and it feels impersonal and academic. It is a great source of information if you were looking for large numbers and as a consumer, did not want to get emotionally involved in the problem.
On the other hand, a NPR article--posted 10 days before The Economist article--led with the story of two Indian girls who were sexually assaulted and killed because they lacked access to toilets and went to a field at night to defecate. The article then follows with quotes from people involved with the girls as well as an anecdote of a blossoming entrepreneur who is trying to solve the problem by installing toilets all over the country.
This article goes on to reference some of the stats and large numbers referenced in The Economist article, but the tone was established early on and it feels like an op-ed piece that sometimes lacks a larger perspective. This article is great if, as a consumer, you do not care as much about the academic side of things and want to be emotionally invested in the story.

5 min
5 min
The Bad: The macro side…

5 min
Central theme – Andrew Stanton stated “Everything you are saying is leading to a singular goal.”
Who is your main character?
If you have these components, they should want to pass it on – does it pass the ‘viral’ test?

5 min
Think of your story as a movie trailer…. After they see it/hear it, will they buy a ticket and bring their friends?

Andrew Stanton “Make Me Care!”

5 min
Ex: Since 1958, Project HOPE has been providing Health Opportunities for People Everywhere including the world’s most vulnerable men, women and children. With the support of donors, corporate partners, and volunteers we are able to serve millions of people each year in 36 countries including the United States.

3 min

5 MINUTES
INTERACTIVE: Share your one-liner with the group.
INTERACTIVE: What’s the one thing that people seem to get most excited about when you talk?
Don’t worry about having the numbers available right now. Put a blank and work to fill that in when you get back to the office and have access to your data. Be prepared to change the statistic you use in case what you have isn’t measurable and then research how you can change that for the future of the organization to make your story stronger in the future.

5 min
5 min
5 min
Make a list but then filter what is going to be valuable to sponsors, donors, supporters, etc.

5 min
YOU SHOULD BE HERE BY 9:05AM!!!!
Theme – A story versus stuff that happens.
Theme – What does the story tell us about being human? What does it say about how we react to something that is out of our control?

Avoid – being reporter like and just giving a ‘how to’

Once you have the story down, determine the best order of the information to best engage people!

5 mins
Your story should take no longer than 2-3 minutes to share. The proof points, etc. will extend it during conversations but the starter should be short and hook the listener/reader.

Go back to the last slide for them to refer to as they write their story.

30 mins
20 mins
Allows you to share what you know with the rest of your organization and maintain a document that can evolve as the organization and your story changes
Portions should be pulled from your organization’s planning documents but the story and proof points, etc. should come from what you have learned today

In the next session, Bob will speak to the importance of building your visuals to help communicate this message map and your story.

3 mins
10 mins
Once you have your story… you need to SHARE IT!

Donor meetings to gather information on each person on the list
Breakfast meet-up
Lunch brainstorming and ask others to submit topics for discussion or things that are keeping them up at night
Start a book club at work, with friends, etc.
Handwritten notes – Thank you cards when I leave a position/company
Interns are now professors at universities, clients and sub-contractors
Host your own focus group
Ask friends and colleagues for feedback
Call old colleagues for feedback – try to balance the good with the bad
Watch Caine’s Arcade on Vimeo http://vimeo.com/40000072

From filmmaker Nirvan Mullick:
I went to buy a door handle for my car, and met this 9 year old boy, who had spent his summer building this elaborate cardboard arcade inside his dad's used auto part store. Caine invited me to play, and I couldn't pass up his FunPass deal. cainesarcade.com
UPDATE: Thank You! Over $240,000 has been donated to Caine's Scholarship Fund, and we started the Imagination Foundation to foster creativity in more kids like Caine. We host an annual Global Cardboard Challenge inspired by Caine's Arcade, and over 200,000 kids in 60 countries have taken part! Please continue to share this story, and lets foster the creativity of every child: imagination.org
http://vimeo.com/40000072

3 mins
We will need to say NO to some of the things you are currently doing in order to say YES to the things that we know produce better results.

5 mins
You should be here by 10:27AM!!!!!!!!!!!!

15 minutes
2 minutes
1 minute

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Hinweis der Redaktion