Find out how to create those deep emotional connections that compel donors to give to your charity

There’s a striking difference between asking a donor to give you your registered charity and compelling them to give. Storytelling is a powerful tool you can use to engage and motivate donors. It takes your cause from an abstract idea to a story that profoundly resonates with others. This isn't about manipulation and guilt that feel more like coercion than generosity. Rather, it’s a strategy to share your story and connect with people who have the resources you need.

Keep reading to learn how to use the art of storytelling in your fundraising. We'll show you how to create emotional connections with the donors who are ready to join you to make a difference in the world.

A Lot of People Misunderstand Donors

Before we address the role of storytelling in your fundraising plan, it's essential to understand the donor perspective. The truth is, many people get it wrong. Every year, charities miss the mark because they don’t take the time to understand and relate to donors. Instead, they focus their efforts on outdated and off-base ideas about charitable giving.

Some common misconceptions of fundraising professionals:

• The charity is the only party that benefits.
• A donor must feel intense pressure to make a donation.
• Fundraising activity must include elements of sales, arm-twisting, and a healthy dose of guilt to be effective.
• You need to organize a fundraiser or charity event to encourage potential donors to part with their money.

None of these are true. In fact, for too long, fundraising has created this weird psychological dynamic around giving. Some have coined it “charity shaming”, focused around the concepts of guilt and obligation. This negative approach is uncomfortable for all parties, and it doesn’t work. It’s time to get rid of the problematic perspective once and for all.

How can you make the shift in your fundraising strategy? By understanding what your donors are trying to do. There is a need for people to donate. They have an internal desire to give back. Most people undervalue this desire or don't understand the supporter's benefits significantly from the act of giving. There is something rewarding donors get from the experience of giving to their favourite charity, and it is individual to them. They have a reason and a story behind why they give to a charitable organization. Once you can identify these things, you make giving to your organization a mutually beneficial experience.

Better Fundraising with Storytelling

Storytelling helps your charity leverage positive emotions rather than negative emotions. Giving out of guilt is not the scenario you want to generate. There's a much greater potential when you tap into the positive reason your donors want to give. They want to support charitable activities because of their passion, personal life experience, or a desire to create a better world. Base your fundraising efforts on potential donors' positive emotions and your fundraising campaign will succeed!

When we look at why people give money to a nonprofit, one of the top reasons is personal value systems. Donations come from the heart. Your organization can have the best solutions to the world's greatest problems. However, charity fundraising will be a struggle if you can't connect with potential donors' hearts and personal value systems. Storytelling is how you connect with powerful emotions that guide decision-making. Sure, they may want to hear the numbers and look at the math to see how it all works out. But ultimately, they want to experience the emotional connection to what their chosen charity is achieving. That's where the power of storytelling lies.

How to Develop Your Charity’s Story

Storytelling is within our human nature-it's how we communicate. This is what we have done for so long as a human race. It's the best way to take a vision and share it with someone else. When it comes to fundraising, storytelling begins with identifying your charity’s vision. This includes the problem you are solving, and the impact you will make when you have the funds to solve the problem.

You will capture your target audience by taking all these components and putting them into a story. They listen. They connect. They resonate. They can see themselves in either the problem or the solution. Donors may see themselves in the story - as the one who experienced the problems. Or their hearts will go out to people who experienced it, and they want to be part of the solution. Either way, you are making that crucial emotional connection with your charitable purpose.

Align Donor Values with the Good You Want to Do

Storytelling is one of the seven key elements to Transformational Fundraising Campaigns, our signature fundraising method at Hussey Philanthropic Consulting. We've mastered this method to help more than 1,000 clients raise over $4B in charitable donation. You shouldn’t have to feel like you are forcing or convincing people to donate to your nonprofit campaign. When you tell your story and align donors’ values to the good you want to do in the world, it all starts to click. Fundraising becomes far less difficult and painful and you will reach your fundraising goal much easier.

Do you feel anxious and uncomfortable about asking donors to give to your organization? Learn how storytelling makes all the difference.