In Brief:
- Nonprofits use storytelling to cut through message overload and emotionally engage donors and policymakers.
- Arts organizations are pairing personal narratives with economic data to demonstrate measurable community impact.
- Disability and healthcare nonprofits rely on personal stories to build trust and strengthen fundraising.
- Combining data with lived experience boosts fundraising success and legislative advocacy.
Storytelling is not just for kids: It’s the lifeblood of nonprofit organizations.
As people are inundated with endless messaging all around them, capturing anyone’s attention is more challenging than ever.
Pulling at people’s heartstrings through a compelling narrative can be key to successful fundraising.
Linking the economic impact to the arts
The arts sector has historically relied on impact narrative, notes Lauren Wagner, executive director of the Long Island Arts Alliance, a regional arts service organization advocating to make arts accessible throughout Nassau and Suffolk counties.
“The arts are inherently story-driven,” Wagner said. “Creative work is lived experience; it’s expression. And impact has been the way that the arts have led their storytelling for a very long time.”
For many years, those stories have been told in isolation, without data anchoring them to their value to the community.
“One of the things that I try and tackle on a daily basis is shifting the narrative from the arts are a luxury to the arts are essential,” she said.
Most people don’t think of connecting arts with dollar figures, but Wagner argues that they are integrally linked.
“My core fundraising philosophy is no story without a number and no number without a story, because I think it’s really important to be able to tell your story in both ways,” said Wagner, adding that when she informed legislators that the arts have had a $330 million impact on Nassau and Suffolk, it got their attention.
Having participated in the Arts & Economic Prosperity Study a few years ago, Long Island Arts Alliance can provide organizations with individualized impact statements, notes Wagner.
For example, in a meeting with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, the Patchogue Arts Council shared stories of their work and how many kids they reach, demonstrating the direct economic impact on the community.
“That was really what led to their multi-million dollar grant that they got from the governor’s office,” Wagner said.
Sharing a personal story
For Kinexion, a management service organization for nonprofits that provide support for people living with disabilities, programs are funded 100 percent by the government, notes Walter Stockton, president and CEO.
“Even if you get 100 percent funding by the government, it’s never really enough,” said Stockton, noting that they need to keep each of their 185 group homes in top shape. “We really don’t get enough money from the government to keep the homes up the way we expect them to be. Fundraising money becomes very important for that.”
For Kinexion, golf outings and dinners are more like “friend-raisers,” as opposed to fundraisers.
“That’s where you get to tell the story. You tell the story to people about how you got here, what you’re doing, how important the world is of what you’re providing,” he said.
When a board member has a friend who is interested in the nonprofit field, Stockton will meet with them, sometimes bringing along parents of a child who they helped moved from an impersonal institution into a supportive residence.
“When you have a child with a disability, you have no preparation for that,” Stockton said. “There’s no class you took in school to teach you how to take care of or even how to emotionally deal with that. So those stories are very, very pertinent to the kinds of things people want to hear when they want to support that.”
The power of narrative
Anybody can recite statistics, but telling a story can move policymakers, donors and community members, avers David Nemiroff, president and CEO of Harmony Healthcare Long Island, which has six separate health centers and four school-based locations in Nassau County.
“The story of what’s going on in our communities has significant impact on people and makes people feel a certain way,” Nemiroff said. “And it’s really important for us as executives of nonprofits to be able to share what those dollars are doing for our community.”
For example, Harmony Healthcare raises funds for “Baby Bundles,” essentials for new moms like car seats, pack & plays and diapers, to help ensure healthy outcomes for babies.
“Depending on who our audience is, we tell that story in such a way that it definitely drives donors to support it,” Nemiroff said.
They now offer scholarships for kids who were patients in their school-based health centers and are interested in pursuing careers in healthcare.
“Storytelling to me is important because it connects our feelings with our actions and it helps give people a reason to give and support,” Nemiroff said. “People, I believe, want to help their neighbors and sometimes they just need a really good story to help make that happen.”
For their Perinatal and Infant Community Health Collaborative, in which they care for moms and their babies for the first two years, Harmony Healthcare shares graduation pictures and speeches with board members and others so they could see how their dollars are spent.
“Telling the stories that try to help one another is very positive because it humanizes what we sometimes take for granted when you just see a headline,” Nemiroff said.
Storytelling can also be very effective in trying to sway legislators for support.
“When we go to Albany or D.C., if we can bring a patient or board member, we do,” he said. “We’ll say: ‘This is what you’ve done for me.’ And I think it’s very powerful when they can hear directly from a constituent.”
ARLENE GROSS, LIBN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Source link