Category Archives: Storytelling

The Power of the Anecdote

Storytelling

If you’ve ever been pregnant…you know the power of the anecdote.

If you’ve ever had surgery…you know the power of the anecdote.

If you’ve ever…toilet trained children, had a vasectomy, grieved a loved one…you know the power of anecdotes.

Anecdotes are just stories about things that happened to other people.

You’ve heard stories about the friend of a friend who was shocked she was having twins, or who had preeclampsia or… You’ve hard about the guy going in for surgery on his left knee who wrote “replace this one” on it with permanent marker to be sure the surgeon got it right.

We all know someone (who knows someone) who had this thing or that thing happen to them. And it made an impact on us. So we remember it. And we pass it on to the next person we encounter that it might relate to.

Stories are connection points

We tell stories to connect with others, and to make sense of our own experiences. If I know someone, or someone who knows someone, who experienced something similar to what you’re going through, it helps me relate to you. If it’s similar to what I’m going through, it helps me integrate the experience into my life.

What does that have to do with fundraising?

Stories in fundraising

When you talk to donors, you’re seeking their connection points with your charity. How does what you do relate to who they are?

Stories and anecdotes about the people you help stick. They stick with your donor relations folks who go out and talk to donors — and need stories to tell. They stick with your donors when they read your newsletter, website, social media messages and even brochures (when done right).

Stories change brain chemistry

And what do they do? Good stories–powerful, engaging stories–actually change the brain chemistry of the people hearing them. And that changes their behavior.

In The Psychology of Storytelling and Empathy on PSYBLOG Jeremy Dean explains how stories with a dramatic arc cause the listener’s brain to release cortisol (associated with distress) and oxytocin (associated with empathy). In turn, folks who released more of those chemicals tended to donate more money–either to another person or to charity.

I don’t think you need a story to explain how that can help your organization.

We are social creatures, ever seeking connection to each other and the world around us. Stories connect us. Tell them.

Your resolution: Tell a better story next time around

Annual appeals, Fundraising, Storytelling

It’s the last day of the giving year.

By now, the results are in from your year-end direct mail letters. You’ve sent out your New Year’s Eve email appeal (you sent it yesterday or today, right? These are the two highest days for online giving in the year).

How are they performing? Do they meet your expectations?

If not, what will you do differently next time?

Change what you can, know what you can’t

There are probably lots of things you can’t change – your executive director, for instance. Or your budget. With education, perseverance and a bit of moxy, you can change some of the seemingly immovable obstacles to good fundraising. Or not. In that case, please refer to the serenity prayer.)

But you can change how you tell your story.

Always go with emotion

Telling a poignant and emotional story will win out over giving your donors statistics hands down, every time.

Wharton marketing professor Deborah Small researches why people make the decisions they do. The research you care about is the decision whether or not a donor responds to your ask.

Here’s what she says in an interview with the Stanford Social Innovation Review:

“The more vivid the story – through narrative or through imagery – the more emotionally arousing. And emotions are what triggers the impetus to help.”

Lose the statistics

Not only do “emotionally arousing” stories inspire donors to help financially, but they are the ONLY thing that truly does. Mix in some statistics and, poof, you lose your impact.

“Showing statistics can actually blunt this emotional response by causing people to think in a more calculative, albeit uncaring, manner,” Small says. Even if you share both the emotional story and the statistics, donations drop.

People give to people

As much as we want to think our donors are rational, logical, intelligent people who think through every decision, they’re not. At least, that’s not what gets them to give.

According to interviews that CCS conducted with more than 6,200 folks, the top three reasons people give are:

  • People are inherently generous
  • People give to people
  • People respond to a meaningful mission

(You can download the full report, the 2013 Snapshot of Today’s Philanthropic Landscape here.)

So next time, tell a story. Tell one person’s story. Your donors will want to help that one person. Because helping that one person, with that one problem, makes the world a better place. It means they’ve made a difference to one person they’ve identified with or felt something for.

But statistics are cool!

Statistics, however, are for the head. They won’t keep you warm on a cold winter’s night. They certainly won’t warm your donors’ hearts.

Statistics overwhelm. They make the project so big, so huge, that it seems insurmountable. Your donors know they can’t save everyone. They can’t make world hunger go away, or provide free health care to everyone in need, or save every kitten from euthanasia.

But they can feed one person, or provide for one life-saving medical test, or help one, soft, furry, innocent feline ball of fluff.

Making a difference

It’s like the story of the starfish stranded on the beach at high tide, dying in the sun. A man walking along the shore begins throwing them back into the ocean, one by one. He knows he can’t throw every starfish back into the ocean, he can’t save all of them.

A friend walking with him points this out to him. Doesn’t it seem pointless to try and save all of them? How can he make a difference?

The man bends down, picks up another starfish and throws it back into the clear, cool ocean water.

He says, “I made a difference to that one.”

Let your donors make a difference. Give them someone to save.