Storytelling is a vital tool for nonprofits—it humanizes your cause and showcases your impact in a powerful way. Respectful storytelling inspires support, raises awareness about your cause, and encourages donations while maintaining trust with your nonprofit’s constituents. This guide will outline four key storytelling elements that will help your nonprofit elevate your impact stories. As you explore these tips, consider the principles of our Shared Power Strategy to ensure your storytelling authentically and accurately represents the individuals and communities your nonprofit exists to serve.
1. Goal-Driven Story Maps
Use a goal-driven story map to align your storytelling with your nonprofit’s specific goals, such as raising awareness, driving donations, or inspiring action. For each of your messagings, you’ll choose a story type, identify your audience and determine which one of your goals it aligns with. This way, your narrative creates a clear path to effectively achieve your nonprofit’s goals for either a specific campaign or your organization as a whole.
For example, let’s say you’re developing a storytelling strategy to market an upcoming charity golf event. A goal-driven story map, can help you more clearly tie the event to your mission and help you transition one-time golfers into ongoing supporters. Your goal-driven story map might look something like this:
| Story Type & Message | Audience | Goal |
| Constituent/Beneficiary Story How your nonprofit has supported someone in achieving their goals. | Prospective golfers and sponsors | Spread awareness of your mission, cause, and work in the community. |
| Supporter Shoutout A specific supporter’s reasons for supporting the golf tournament. | Current and prospective golfers and sponsors | Use social proof to encourage people to volunteer, donate, sponsor, or register to play in the charity golf tournament. |
| Staff or Volunteer Spotlight How a staff member or volunteer has been instrumental in making the event happen. | Current and prospective golfers and sponsors | Forge connections between nonprofit representatives and potential attendees. |
| Impact Snapshot/Updates Updates on specific goals, and how participation in this event and beyond fuels your mission. | Current and prospective golfers and sponsors | Show real-time progress on key performance metrics leading up to the golf tournament. |
| Sponsor Spotlight Why a specific sponsor’s contribution goes beyond their logo on golf tournament signage, but also supports the organization in an ongoing way throughout. | Current and prospective tournament sponsors | Encourage other businesses and organizations to sponsor your charity golf tournament, either through monetary support or in-kind donations. Emphasize long-term relationships. |
| Supporter Acknowledgement Appreciation for a volunteer or donor who has made a significant impact on your organization’s mission. | Individual supporters | Steward relationships with supporters and inspire new donors to contribute. |
| Post-Tournament Beneficiary Updates Specific outcomes, such as dollars raised and number of participants, and the impact of the tournament. | Tournament participants and general supporter base | Show the tournament’s lasting impact on your nonprofit’s mission in tangible terms. |
| Post-Tournament Event Recap Summary of the tournament’s memorable components (like a hole-in-one contest winner) and how your nonprofit will use funds raised to advance specific initiatives. | Tournament participants and general supporter base | Highlight the tournament’s outcomes and moments to encourage participation in future golf tournaments and deeper engagement. |
You can consider making the story map even more actionable for your communications strategy by incorporating the channel and timing of each type of story.
2. Contextual Data Integration
The data your nonprofit collects can be a gold mine when it comes to showing impact. Using data without any explanation can be tempting, but it’s most impactful when you properly contextualize the data with descriptions.
Here are a few tips for integrating key data points into your nonprofit’s storytelling to maximize impact:
- Upmetrics suggests focusing on beneficiary-centric impacts. For instance, see the example from Ignite, a Chicago-based organization that supports youth experiencing homelessess.
- Use before and after comparisons to show changes in data over time. For example, you might say that five years ago, 60% of local classrooms had access to reliable internet and today that number is nearly 95% thanks, in part, to your donors’ support.
- Translate data into visual formats like charts, infographics, or maps to make your audience’s grasp easier. Seeing the data presented in a visual manner can be more impactful than simply a paragraph of text. See this example from Challenge Detroit, a yearlong fellowship program in Detroit.
- Break down large numbers into more tangible terms. Large numbers can be overwhelming and impersonal, so break them down into relatable metrics. For example, “Thanks to $50,000 in contributions, we provided school supplies to over 2,000 students—enough to stock 100 classrooms.”
- Focus on outcomes, not just outputs. Outputs are measurable actions (such as “500 blankets distributed”), while outcomes (“500 families stayed warm during the cold weather”) highlight the result of those outputs to demonstrate the broader significance of your work.
3. Multi-Channel Sharing Potential
As you create your stories, think about how you will share them with your audiences. The most versatile stories can be told via many different channels and mediums. Creating modular content that can be repurposed in various ways makes your marketing processes more efficient and impactful for different audiences.
It’s important to note that not every story works well on every medium, so don’t force anything that doesn’t feel genuine. Listen to feedback from your audience and pivot your strategy as necessary if certain content isn’t flowing naturally.
For instance, an hours-long interview could be transformed into a series of short-form content to be posted on social media over the course of many weeks. It could also be distilled down to highlights in a blog post or newsletter article. You might even post the interview in its entirety on your nonprofit’s YouTube channel.
4. Community-Driven Element
Stories sourced directly from your community and your nonprofit’s constituents ensure authenticity and save your communications team time and effort. Going straight to the source allows you to gather necessary information while adding dimension to your impact.
For example, you might create a submission form on your organization’s website and share it on social media, in email newsletters, and through other channels. Encourage supporters and constituents to share their stories via the form. Your team can sift through submissions and follow up with the most compelling prospects. A photo upload option as part of the form can offer additional context for the story.
As mentioned above, taking a respectful approach to storytelling is crucial. Let those who are included in stories know exactly how and where their stories will be used so they’re not caught off guard, and give them the option to share their story anonymously, if they prefer. Community-driven stories are impactful, but also require extra care.
Final Thoughts
As you consider how you might weave storytelling into your nonprofit’s communications strategy, it’s a good idea to review your current approaches to storytelling, including collection and distribution tactics. Next, form a plan for being respectful in collecting impact stories from your audience. Finally, think through how you might expand your stories’ reach into new channels and mediums.
