Why Story is Important for Philanthropy 21
Philanthropy is pursued by healthcare organizations in order to have a greater impact within a community served. It generates revenue to support needs, ties the community more strongly to a nonprofit, and creates more engaged employees. Experience and a vast amount of research studies have shown philanthropy reaches high impact where there is strong nonprofit leadership and effective use of story.
Nonprofit organizations that are most effective in terms of fundraising revenue generated and donor growth have strong leadership and a commitment to story. These organizations have an emotional approach to generosity and they use story as the language to connect with donors. Story is not used as a way to emphasize how great and wonderful a nonprofit is for individuals and the community. Instead, story is used to show how the needs of the community are addressed. The hero or heroine of story is the donor, volunteer, client/patient or person providing care or service to those in need.
There are three major reasons why story is and should play an important role for nonprofit organizations.
It is About Emotion . . . and Story
Research has recently shown that giving is driven by donor emotion; donors give from the heart more than from the head. When donors give, the emotional centers of the mind are activated, releasing electrical and chemical properties. Many refer to this as the “giving high” which a number of donors describe.
In order to create the emotional connection, it is necessary to use story. Story is often described as the language of philanthropy. Through the use of fMRI studies, scientist have learned that stories activate more than the language center of the mind when a person reads or listens to a story. It activates a number of centers in the mind. Many of these centers are the same ones as those associated with emotion (see the Emotion content pages of this website).
The right stories will make people act. Chip Heath and Dan Heath discovered that stories can recreate an experience in the mind as lifelike as the story itself. Story has the ability to move people to action because it is generated from the emotion centers of the mind. (1)
The Heath brothers also found story “sticks” with donors far more than facts and figures. Each year, Stanford students participate in an exercise where they must make presentations. One half of the class members are asked to make a one minute presentation about to convince their colleagues that nonviolent crime is an issue in the United States. The other half of the class members are asked to make the opposite argument in one minute. The students are asked to rate the presentations of each speaker.
Following the presentations, all students review a videotape of an unrelated subject, Monty Python. Then, they are asked to write down the important points they recall from the presentations. Heath found that stories are recalled 63% of the time while facts are recalled 5% of the time. It is interesting to note that there is almost no correlation between the speaking talent of presenters and the ability to make ideas stick. In other words, one need not be a smooth storyteller to make it stick. (2)
Individuals are Wired . . . For Story
An individual must deal with a mountain of information in the course of a day. Reading a sentence or two can easily create 11 million pieces of information. However, your mind is only able to register about 40 pieces of the information at a time. The mind can only process about seven bits of data at a time.
Therefore, how do we adapt to the growing deluge of information? How do we make sense of a world where we are overwhelmed with data beyond our abilities?
The answer is we have adapted; we are hardwired for story. It is the body’s shorthand to deal with problems, issues and life-threatening situations. As Lisa Cron found, story allows us to simulate real-life situations without having to actually experience them. This is a way for us to grow and adapt and survive. (3)
In one study, odor centers of the brain were found to be activated when stories provided words with strong odor associations in the stories. This held true also for words associated with motion. Through story, individuals are able to experience.
Story Heals
Not only do stories allow us to experience a situation without the actual experience, they can also help us heal. Bybarczyk and Bellg studied the use of stories in healthcare through comparison of different patient groups who were asked to tell their story. They identified the level of stress prior to their test and following it.
The patents receiving care were split into four patient groups. The two groups that used story to describe their situation experienced a decrease in anxiety after interviews. The other two groups that did not use story experienced an increase in stress. The study also indicated that volunteers who were trained to elicit patient stories were just as effective as professional healthcare providers who elicited patient stories. (4)
This study gives fundraisers food for thought. Do we ask donors for their stories? Do we provide the opportunity for them to emotionally use story as a way to heal? The beauty is that the study also shows it doesn’t take a professional to elicit stories. Volunteers can be effective where properly trained.
Story Survey
How prepared are you to become or remain one of the top nonprofits in your community, state or region? Have you adapted knowing now what works?
One way to find out is to take a brief, basic survey about your commitment to and use of story. You will find below a set of survey questions. Each question can be answered either “yes” or “no.” When you have completed the survey, add up all of the “yes” answers. The higher the number of “yes” answers the better.
- Do you use stories in your brochures, website, letters and presentations?
- Are your stories focused upon the interests and needs of your clients/patients, donors, volunteers and service providers?
- Are your stories emotion oriented, engaging the reader, listener or viewer?
- Do you lead with emotion and follow with facts in your communications for connecting, cultivating and asking for support?
- Do your stories focus on one person that readers, listeners and viewers can identify with?
- Have you included stories in your communications with volunteers and board members to create a culture of story?
- Do you have a story about your nonprofit that emotionally connects?
- Do you ask your volunteers, donors and clients/patients for their stories? Many of them want to share their story.
Story Survey Scale
0 to 2 yes answers Substantial improvement is indicated
3 to 5 yes answers More improvement is needed
6 to 8 yes answers Good work and continue to improve
NOTES:
(1) Chip and Dan Heath, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. (New York, Random House, 2007), 206-224.
(2) Heath, 243.
(3) Lisa Cron, Wired for Story: The Writer’s Guide to using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence (New York, Ten Speed Press, 2012), 8-10.
(4) Bruce Rybarczyk and Albert Beige, Listening to Stories: A New Approach to Stress Intervention in Health Care, (New York: Springer Publishing Company, 1997), 35-36
Similars Attract 20
Donors identify with an individual in need especially where they feel they are connected to the individual by religion, nationality, gender, age, or even social class. For example, a potential female donor who is approaching her retirement will likely be more engaged with a person in need who is older and female. It is easier to identify with that individual in need because the situation is more familiar. In The Pocket Guide to Fundraising Psychology, they found people are “more generous and helpful” when they believe the person in need is a part of their group. (!)
What about children? Why do donors identify with children and give? Since everyone was a child at one time, everyone can identify with a child. A child also connects with our emotions built around innocence, vulnerability and genuineness. Therefore, the emotional connection to children is strong in most cases.
Because similarity is such a strong connection for many donors, it is important to advocate with a personal connection. Spokespersons are usually more effective when they are able to identify their connection with the cause as a past victim, client, donor or patient. This is a good nonprofit approach.
Fundraisers often tend to speak to potential donors who have experienced a specific need or know of someone in their families or circle of friends who have experienced such a need. This is what is referred to as the personal connection. It is important, however, not to send a subliminal message to individuals who do not have a personal connection that their donation is not important.
Research has shown that fundraisers may limit donor support where they overestimate the impact of the cause connection upon attitudes. (2) In other words, fundraisers may conclude that there will be a lack of interest where an individual has no personal connection to the cause. Because of this, the message to potential donors may likely send a message that speaks to those who are connected and leave those who are not connected feeling that their support is not warranted. This may be a factor as to why potential donors report the number one reason they did not give to a cause was they were not asked to give.
Toolkit Suggestions:
- Consider who your audience is.
- What are the demographics and what interests them?
- What medium is best used for story to reach them?
NOTES:
(1) StayClassy, “The Pocket Guide to Fundraising Psychology,” (San Diego, Stay Classy, 2014), 9.
(2) D.T. Miler and R.K. Ratner , “The Disparity Between the Actual and Assume Power of Self Interest, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , editors Eliot A. Smith et. al. (Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 1998), 53-62.
Five Stories To Tell Story Episode 19
There are five stories that a nonprofit should develop to share in various communications. These five stories create an integrated fabric for the nonprofit, similar to several chapters forming a book. The stories should provide a consistency and include emotion that engages readers, listeners and viewers.
- Client or patient in need story
- Donor story
- Volunteer/service provider story
- Nonprofit – why we exist story
- Collaboration story – show how the nonprofit works with other organizations in the community
Toolkit Suggestions:
- It is important to have a nonprofit story which describes why the organization exists and connects to the community. With more than one million nonprofits just in the United States, it is important to differentiate and have your nonprofit stand out from the crowd.
- The nonprofit story may be used for a number of years because it is an important part of history and culture.
- The client or patient in need stories can be used for six to 12 months before considering whether to replace them.
- Think about using stories that were told in the past five to ten years and reintroduce these stories to the public.
Hook Statement Is Critical to Your Story 18
The reader, listener or viewer will normally give you five to ten seconds to be engaged before his or her attention is lost. Facebook research showed the average time watched of a 3 minute and 48 second video on their site was 10 seconds or 4%, according to an article from Georgetown University Center for Social Impact Communication. (1)
Why such a short time period to make an impact? Individuals are bombarded with countless number of messages each and every day and hour. It is estimated that a person encounters several thousand messages each day from media, individuals, internet, and other sources. Therefore, the first sentence or two of a story is critical. It is important to “hook” the reader, listener or reader.
A poignant example of a very effective hook statement was highlighted by Georgetown University Center for Social Impact Communication. The hook statement was used in a video by One Young World. The hook statement is a compelling opening told by an engaging amateur storyteller—“I am a survivor.” (2)
Fiction writers and video developers must master the hook statement in order to engage a reader or viewer. Because of this, you may find it helpful to browse through a library or book store to review fiction novels and their first sentence or two. You may want to browse Amazon online and read the first page of new books where they offer sneak peeks online. On YouTube, watch the opening 30 seconds of highly viewed videos. What hooks are used?
There are many ways to grab the attention of individuals so they will continue to read or listen to you. Some categories are outlined below with examples. A list of samples of hook statements are provided at the end of this section.
- Begin with a question:
What would you do if you lost your home?
How many seconds do you have in an emergency?
- Create an urgent statement that is associated with the character in your story:
Susan didn’t know she was that close to dying.
I was the most afraid I have been in my life.
- Use a role reversal to engage a person.
I never expected to see someone like me in that situation.
What if this happened to you?
- Start in the middle of the story.
There I was totally surprised.
When I picked him up for school, I realized he was living in an abandoned garage.
Sample Hook Statements:
- Alice didn’t know if she would survive.
- Have you ever wondered what you would do if you failed?
- I never realized, until it was too late, that my car would become my home.
- You never know when crisis will come knocking at your door.
- It took every remaining ounce of Todd’s energy to make it up the ragged hill. Despite his lingering fear, he now knew he had no choice.
- How can a month of giving change your life? (Cami Walker)
- One out of four individuals will go hungry was a statistic . . . until it was me.
- I am a survivor.(One Young World)
- Despite her strong will, she could no longer ignore the obvious.
Toolkit Suggestions:
A hook statement may be the most difficult part of the story for many individuals who create stories. If so, you may want to create several draft hook statements, set them aside, and work on the rest of the story. Later, return to the hook statements to further refine them. It also can be helpful to have several other individuals read the hook statements and provide feedback.
NOTES:
(1) Sara Dal Lago, Breaking Through the Noise: Digital Storytelling for Social Impact, Georgetown University Center for Social Impact Communication, May 23, 2018, 4. Accessed by http://csic.georgetown.edu/magazine/breaking-noise-digital-storytelling-social-impact/
(2) Sara Dal Lago, Georgetown University CSIC, 5.
Story and Emotions 17
A story without emotion is a story with no energy to hold it together. There are a number of emotions that stories may include. Conflict is a very important part of any story because it builds the emotion and holds the attention of the audience. A number of the major emotions that may be used in stories include the following:
- Anger
- Disgust
- Sadness
- Surprise
- Fear
- Happiness
Some stories may include one or several of emotions. For example, a story may begin with the character being sad because he has lost his job and doesn’t know how he and his family will live. Later in the story, he may find a nonprofit who helps them back on their feet. At the end of the story, the emotion may be happiness.
It is important to keep in mind that individuals continue to read a story if they see an individual is facing turmoil or conflict. They will continue with the story because they want to find out how the story ends, what happens to the character and/or what they may learn for the future if they fall into a similar problem. If there is little or no emotion in the story, many individuals will not continue being engaged because the story becomes bland and lifeless.
Toolkit Suggestions:
When creating a story, think in terms of the story as a roller coaster ride. The turmoil or conflict begins and increases as the story advances. The conflict comes to a peak point where something must change. Resolution. Once resolved it is like the end of the roller coaster where there is a release of energy and the vehicle finally comes to rest.
