You need to tell stories to raise more funds for your mission, ministry or nonprofit. But why is that? What exactly is it that stories do?
Every known culture tells stories. This is the way we make sense of the world and our place in it. All through the donor journey, especially with people who are not yet aware of you and your mission. Stories help draw them in, and help them get to know, like, and trust you.
Why Tell Stories?
- Stories help us connect – When you listen to a story, your brainwaves actually start to synchronize with those of the storyteller.
- Research shows compelling stories cause our brains to release oxytocin, increase empathy, and have the power to affect our behaviors.
- Stories help us remember who we are and what we’re about. Donors give to their values. Telling stories that reflect those values help donors make good decisions about whether you’re a good match for them.
- Stories reveal truths – your storytelling can help people see the world in a new way. Shift perspectives, overcome prejudices.
- Stories offer dignity and context for beneficiaries, and give them a voice.
- Stories put our critical minds aside for a moment, and we willingly enter into the narrative. We try to find ourselves in the story.
- Stories give us context to make sense of all those things.
You don’t just “need a story” to fill a space in your newsletter. You need a story to show donors what they can accomplish by giving to your mission. Where do they fit in this story? Not just through giving, but in the big picture of a world where this thing is a problem. They can reflect their values, glorify God, ease suffering, and experience deep personal satisfaction by stepping into this story and playing an active role.
In our ministries, stories are an invitation into a world most people haven’t experienced. If I live in America and I’m immersed in church culture, and all my friends are Christians, I don’t give much thought to what it’s like to not know who Jesus is. To not have ever seen a bible. So, when you say you need funds to go and preach the gospel, or to live in another culture for several years so they can have a bible in their language, you can’t just start there. You have to bring donors into that world and give context to what you do and why you do it. You do that with stories.
I’m convinced one of the most powerful helps for us to tell better stories is to think about why we tell stories in the first place!
If you struggle to tell stories, you’ll struggle to raise funds.
In the Mission Writers course:
- Learn the exact stories that every ministry, missionary, and nonprofit needs to tell.
- Master the fundraising story calendar.
- Develop and practice essential storytelling skills to increase funding for your mission.
- Build your story library and your confidence.
Details at MissionWriters.org
Support the show
Mission Writers is an online course and group coaching experience where you’ll develop and practice essential storytelling skills to help increase funding for your mission. Get started now, for a year of coaching at over 60% off the regular price.
Kay Helm 0:00
I'm Kay Helm. And this is the Life and Mission Podcast, episode 67: why you need to tell stories to raise more funds.
Kay Helm 0:17
Going forward, you're going to hear a lot about storytelling on this podcast. And here's why. When I joined David Oaks' group on fundraising, and you may have heard me talk a little bit about in this last episode, I joined his fundraising Accelerator in August 2021. And David and I were experimenting, we worked with eight small organizations. And we walked them through their year in fundraising. None of these organizations had done their year-end campaigns before; all of them ended up doing better than they'd ever done by year's end. And some though some saw wild success, but others struggled in the difference, at least as far as David and I could see, were their ability to tell powerful stories in writing. So we talked and we said, Okay, we have to do something in that area of writing. And there has to be some way to help them with their written storytelling projects. And that's when Mission Writers was born. I started Mission Writers in February this year, 2022. And the idea was to get them together, get writers together and help missionaries and small ministries and nonprofits write these stories. And we're still learning and experimenting, but I've become even more convinced that this is going to make a tremendous difference for these small organizations, and their ability to raise funds. And we've broadened it out. It's not right, just writers helping organizations now now, it's also people from within. And today, I want to look at the reasons though, why we need to tell stories, and why we need to become skilled at telling stories. Okay? So these are some things that happen when we tell stories.
Kay Helm 2:07
Stories help us to connect. When you listen to a story, your brainwaves actually start to synchronize with those of the storyteller. Research shows that compelling stories actually cause our brains to release oxytocin, it increases empathy, and it can have the power to affect our behaviors, because it creates empathy. Telling a story actually inspires more generosity than simply reporting information. So this is important to you as a fundraiser.
Kay Helm 2:38
Stories also help us remember who we are, what we're about, and what are those things that we hold dear. And what you need to know with that when fundraising is that donors give to their values. So telling stories that reflect those values help donors make good decisions about whether or not you're a good match.
Kay Helm 3:00
The other thing that stories do is they reveal truths. Your storytelling can help people see the world in a new way. They can shift perspectives, overcome prejudices, and we believe stories more than we believe facts alone. Okay, so storytelling, really is a vehicle for carrying truth, and done well, stories can offer dignity and context for your beneficiaries and give them a voice. Stories help us see things from another person's point of view. It's this stories help us walk a mile in someone's shoes, right?
Kay Helm 3:35
So stories, they put our critical minds aside for a moment, we willingly enter into the narrative, and we try to find ourselves in the stories. Okay, so what's happening there is a story gives us context to make sense of all those things that you don't just need a story to fill space in your newsletter, you need a story to show donors what they can accomplish by giving to your mission, where do they fit in the story, not just through giving, but in the big picture of a world where this thing is a problem. They can help be a part of the solution, they can reflect their values, they can glorify God, they can ease suffering, they can experience a deep personal satisfaction by stepping into this story by playing an active role. And so you tell them that story, you help them place themselves in that story. And then you give them a call to action.
Kay Helm 4:31
So every known culture tells story. This is the way we make sense of the world and our place in it and all through the donor journey, especially with people who are not yet aware of you and your mission. Stories are going to help draw them in and help get them to know like and trust you.
Kay Helm 4:50
When we get involved or immersed into a story. We drop our defenses. We actually will allow ourselves to be carried along right into the world. Think about the last fiction book you read - a really good one, okay, you get carried along into the world of the storyteller and your brains actually release, your brain releases these chemicals that affect your mood, your connection, your creativity, your focus your decision making. And in our ministry, stories are an invitation also into this world that maybe they're not familiar with. So if you think about your particular situation, I'm going to give an example if I live in America, and I'm immersed in American church culture, and all my friends are Christians, maybe I don't give a lot of thought as to what it's like not to know who Jesus is, not to have ever seen a Bible, and when you need funds to go and preach the gospel in that environment, or to live in another culture for several years, and learn a language and helps a group have a Bible in their own language. Let's say, you can't just start out there in the field, you have to bring that context, you have to bring that world to your donors and give context to what you do, and why you do it. And the way you do that is by telling these compelling stories, when donors don't understand, you tell them stories that show not tell, why you do something in a certain way. Okay, that's just a couple of examples.
Kay Helm 6:20
But think of your mission. What are some of the questions that people ask about what you do about why you do it? What are some misconceptions that people have? What do you wish people knew? Those are really great places to start. Think about the stories now, when you when you're thinking about a story that you can tell? How can you tell a story that shows them? Why, okay, why you do those things the way you do? And and this is this is part of the storytelling journey for us, right is how do you find these stories? And how do we tell them in that way to help people understand and that's part of what we do with Mission Writers. So what stories can you tell, to help donors to connect with the hands-on work, especially if your mission is far away, and they are not likely to ever experience it personally, and even if they do come visit? If they make a trip out there to see what you're doing? Or to be involved in it in some way? How can you tell the stories to give context to what they're doing so that it has even more impact?
Kay Helm 7:27
I'm convinced that this is one of the most powerful things we can do is to tell better stories and to think about why we tell stories in the first place. Thanks for being here. If you enjoyed this, please tell a friend share this episode with somebody that you think will get something helpful from it. I'll be back next week. I'm Kay Helm. And this is the Life and Mission podcast. Find your voice. Tell your story. Change the world.