Ethical Nonprofit Storytelling Guide: How to Stay Respectful

Nonprofit storytelling empowers organization to connect with supporters over their mission.

Paint a clear picture of your nonprofit’s important work to better connect with supporters and donors.

There is a stark difference between generic appeals and those that use storytelling. Imagine being asked to give to a nonprofit that offers no information about who the organization serves or how those people feel about their involvement. Now, picture a compelling year-end giving appeal that tells the story of Sarah, an 8-year-old in the foster care system who received life-changing support this year from a nonprofit’s mentorship program. 

Which organization would you donate to?

Clearly, effective storytelling can work wonders for your fundraising appeals. Supporters need to know who they’re giving to, why it’s necessary, or how their donations will make an impact—the best way to communicate this information and pull on donors’ heartstrings is storytelling.

But exactly how do you tell genuine, inspirational stories while respecting your community members? In this guide to ethical nonprofit storytelling, we’ll cover:

Let’s start with the basics.

What is nonprofit storytelling?

Nonprofit storytelling is the practice of using real-life stories from your organization’s work to convey your nonprofit’s mission and values. 

Storytelling is critical to communicate your brand values, humanize your nonprofit, and captivate potential donors. Appealing emotionally and logically to potential supporters through stories can help them understand the impact of your mission on a human level, increasing their connection and commitment to your cause.

The Power of Storytelling in Nonprofit Fundraising

Nonprofit storytelling has countless benefits for your organization’s fundraising and engagement efforts. When you implement a storytelling strategy that resonates with your support base, you may see improvements in donor acquisition, retention, engagement, and loyalty.

Research shows that storytelling is an effective way to boost overall fundraising results. In a recent study by Storyraise, survey responses indicated that:

  • 70% of donors say they’re more likely to give to nonprofits that effectively use storytelling.

  • 80% of donors say they are likely or very likely to support organizations that share stories of issues they care about. 

  • 60% of donors believe nonprofits that use storytelling effectively are more transparent.

Along with these fundraising benefits, the act of telling beneficiary and volunteer stories brings you closer to key stakeholders in your nonprofit’s mission. Your team will gain a more personal understanding of your community’s experiences as they collect stories, helping them better serve constituents.

How to Tell an Impactful, Compelling Story

Learning how to inspire your audience and gain donor support is what will keep your mission alive. Follow these steps to tell more engaging, powerful stories.

1. Identify Your Main Character and Get Their Permission

People relate to people. It can be difficult for donors to empathize with your mission if they cannot visualize your work and who it helps. That’s why your first step is to determine whose story you want to tell and what message you want to convey. 

Always tell true stories about real people involved with your nonprofit. Potential main characters include:

  • Beneficiaries

  • Volunteers

  • Program participants

  • Donors

  • Board members

  • Other members of your community

Say your nonprofit works with cancer patients to fund their medical journeys. If you want to communicate how their lives are impacted by your work, you might interview several current patients. Ask about their lives prior to your aid. Did they have a payment plan? How did they find your organization? How do they feel about your support? What is a day in their life like? How has their lived experience changed since receiving your help?

These questions will help you get to the heart of your main characters’ stories. As you interview constituents, make sure to ask for their written permission to share their story. Respect their wishes, such as if they would rather remain anonymous or only share their words, not their picture.

2. Outline the Story’s Structure

Once you’ve heard a constituent’s story firsthand, take steps to translate that story into a linear narrative. What is the initial conflict or inciting incident in their story? How did the constituent and your nonprofit join forces to find a solution? What should the reader take away from it?

Break down each part of the story, focusing on the problem your organization helped address. At a minimum, ensure every story’s structure includes:

  • Conflict: This could be the issue that your mission aims to address, a life event (such as getting diagnosed with cancer), or something as simple as, “Darren the volunteer saw injustice in his community and wanted to help stop it.”

  • Resolution: How did the main character overcome the issue or take positive action with your nonprofit’s help? Be careful not to present your organization as a savior—always honor the part the constituent played in their own story.

  • Call to action: End with a clear directive about what action the reader should take next. Often, this is donating, but you may also ask supporters to volunteer, advocate for your cause, or even share their own story.

Other aspects of a standard narrative story, like exposition and falling action, may or may not be included based on how you use the story. For example, a video might include the full narrative, while a short email appeal only includes the conflict, resolution, and call to action.

3. Infuse Facts and Testimonials

To appeal to your audience, you’ll need to add details from your work to your nonprofit storytelling. Most importantly, you must incorporate:

  • Facts, numbers, and statistics: Add concrete data to give readers tangible proof of your impact. For instance, include the number of people you’ve helped in a set period of time, or share the job acquisition rate of your career prep program participants.

  • Direct quotes and testimonials: Conduct interviews with constituents and staff members and use their exact words in the story. Or, use video testimonials and incorporate clips of these individuals speaking about your organization’s work.

Emotional and logical appeals elicit many different responses. Consider your goal and audience to determine the details that will be most effective in conveying your message. 

4. Tailor the Story for Different Donor Segments

Who are you appealing to with your nonprofit storytelling? Depending on their understanding of your mission and previous level of involvement, audience members may require more or less detail for a fuller picture. 

If your support base is mostly made up of adults with children, for example, they will likely respond emotionally to stories about your work with children. In a similar vein, people late in their careers may be considering making a major contribution. By talking about the exact on-the-ground impact of donations, you can appeal to their logical side of wanting to make a good investment with their gift. 

Just as there are different levels of donors in your donor pyramid, there are different depths of storytelling necessary for each one. Consider the following segments of your supporter base and how you might shape stories that appeal to each audience: 

  • Past program participants are highly familiar with your programs and want to hear success stories of current participants or peers.

  • Prospective donors may be interested in giving but are unfamiliar with your nonprofit’s mission. Use stories about who you’re helping and how.

  • Current donors will be familiar with your organization, so introduce them to any new programs or initiatives you’ve launched.

  • Volunteers will be familiar with how your organization works, so focus on the impact financial gifts can have on the mission they’re familiar with.

Break down your current donors by giving level for even deeper insights. For instance, first-time donors will be excited and curious, so you can describe the impact of their first gift. Major donors, on the other hand, are eager to see if their investments have paid off. Focus these stories on large achievements and future plans for expansion.

Once you’ve considered what segment of your donor population you want to reach, you can tailor the story to their motivations, interests, giving histories, and habits. 

5. Set Key Performance Indicators to Measure Success

Before sharing your completed story with your target audience, establish a way to gauge the story’s success. You might use standard marketing metrics like conversion rate and return on investment (ROI), along with channel-specific performance indicators like direct mail response rates.

Choosing metrics ahead of time and defining how you’ll track them will help you learn from your storytelling campaign and improve future outreach.

6. Distribute the Story Strategically

Finally, create a strategy for sharing your story with supporters. Determine which marketing channels you’ll use to distribute the story, such as:

  • Direct mail

  • Email

  • Social media

  • Video

  • Website pages

  • Blog posts

Just like you tailored your story to different audiences, you’ll need to tweak how you present your story to suit the strengths of each channel. For example, a direct mail appeal should be formatted as a personal letter, while you might tell the story visually for social media. On your website, you can go into even more detail to tell the full story.

You’ve put a lot of work into crafting the best constituent story, so it makes sense to use it more than once. Make a plan to share the story on different platforms at different times without overwhelming your audience. Use your marketing calendar, or incorporate the story into your stewardship matrix for long-term use.

  • Resonance: Ensure stories resonate with the main character and your audience by only telling true stories using genuine, humanizing details.

  • Relevance: Stories should be accurate and relevant to your mission and all the constituents involved. Remember to give the donor a place in your story and use donor-centric language when you make your call to action.

  • Respect: Respect your constituents by remaining direct, honest, and compassionate. Never use stereotypes when telling beneficiaries’ stories, and avoid evoking emotions like fear or guilt.

Empower Your Beneficiaries

This goes back to the savior complex we mentioned earlier. When you tell beneficiaries’ stories, your goal should be to empower them, not exploit them or paint them in a negative light.

Empower beneficiary storytellers by giving them control over their story from start to finish. Invite them to share only as much as they feel comfortable with, get permission for all communications you want to include their story in, and give them the final say on story content. Share several drafts of the story with them and encourage honest feedback. If they don’t like how you presented them, rewrite the story appropriately.

Encourage Supporters to Submit Their Own Stories

To give storytellers a more active role and reduce the resource strain of collecting stories, invite anyone who’s interested to share stories on their own time. You might do this by:

  • Adding a story submission form to your website.

  • Including an ongoing call for stories in your monthly newsletter.

  • Sending the link to your submission form directly to volunteers and participants.

Encourage constituents to share their stories in any way that works for them—whether a paragraph of text, a selfie video, or a collection of photos and quotes. This way, you put the power in your storytellers’ hands. They only share the details that they want to, and they won’t feel pressured to answer questions if they’re not interested in sharing.

Incorporate Data Into Every Story

Including hard, quantitative data in your stories doesn’t just appeal to donors’ logical sides—it also helps prove that you’re representing your work accurately and not embellishing anything. Make sure that every story you tell includes clear data points, such as program impact metrics, numbers of people served, etc.

Use Respectful Visuals

Images and videos showcase your community members and put a face to your nonprofit’s mission. When used respectfully, they’re valuable additions to your story. 

This means using real, unedited photos of your community with their full permission. Don’t use stock photos or visuals that misrepresent your main characters. If a storyteller wants to remain anonymous or not show their picture, use other photos taken by your nonprofit’s staff. Or, stick to other visual elements that align with the story’s tone and your organization’s branding.

Nonprofit Storytelling Examples to Get Inspired By

What does all of our advice look like in practice? Explore these nonprofit storytelling examples to get a glimpse of how you might present your stories.

Beneficiary Story

Our team created this story-based direct mail appeal for the Meals on Wheels Foundation of Northern Illinois. In the call to action itself (“Be a bright light for seniors this spring!”), we included the photo of a beneficiary named Ruthie and brief information about her story. Then, we explained what role the donor can play: “Because you care, people like Ruthie can enjoy a nutritious meal this spring!”

Donor Story

The communications experts at Meyer Partners created this appeal for St. Labre Indian School, an educational institution looking to boost its legacy giving program. In it, we chronicled the story of a 99-year-old donor who wanted to do more for the school’s mission. We shared details about the donor’s history, motivations for giving, and connection to other donors like the letter recipients.

Volunteer Story

This blog post on the We Raise Foundation website shares the stories of their generous volunteers and their success with a Family Nights program. In the post, the nonprofit includes photos, text, and direct quotes from volunteers like the one pictured above. 

Wrapping Up

You have the tools to develop strong, story-based marketing materials to inform and engage donors. However, developing in-depth nonprofit storytelling can be a large undertaking. If you want extra support, don’t be afraid to reach out to storytelling experts like those at Meyer Partners. Our consultants can partner with you to develop powerful stories that get to the heart of your mission.

Want more information first? We’ve gathered a few additional resources to accompany your journey into nonprofit storytelling: 

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