4 Steps to Powerful Storytelling

Telling Your Story in a compelling manner and which inspires your audience to act is an art form. Whether the action you desire your audience to take is donating funds, volunteering, or advocating for you, they will be moved to act when they emotionally connect to your mission through story.

Stories hold the power to captivate your audience, to connect to them on an emotional level. The oxytocin released in the brain as we engage with a story directly relates to how much we’re willing to help others. The more vivid the story, the more emotionally arousing.  And emotions are what triggers the motivation to help. Storytelling inspires giving.  It’s what will allow you to build relationships and open possibilities.

If you want your nonprofit to produce compelling stories that inspire your audience to act you will need to know how to collect stories and how to tell them.  To collect stories, you need to know what questions to ask to allow you to hear and develop the emotion.  To tell a story you will need to understand how to use the narrative arc.  To consistently produce compelling stories involves creating a storytelling culture.  In this mini course you will learn how to create a storytelling culture, collect stories, and craft and tell inspiring stories.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN AND WHAT YOU WILL DO

You will learn:

• The power of stories and why nonprofits should tell them.  
• The 3 barriers to good storytelling and how to overcome them.
• How to create a storytelling culture.

What you will do:

• Watch the Lesson One Video:  12 minutes
• Activity:  Take one action to create a storytelling culture; note barriers during this activity

LIVE MEETING:

• Participate with other nonprofit leaders in a one hour discussion and activity

Step One : Story Inventory

You will learn:

• How to find the stories you already have and the seven types of stories you need to have.  

What you will do:

• Watch the Lesson Two Video
• Activity:  Create a shareable evergreen form for Story Inventory

Step Two: Audience

Your stories will connect you to the people you serve, the people who support you and the people who help you. 

You will learn:

• How to connect the type of story to the audience who needs to hear that story.

What you will do:

• Activity: Choose an audience to whom to tell your story & decide type of story you will tell this audience.

LIVE MEETING: 

• Participate with other nonprofit leaders in a one hour discussion and activity

Step Three: Story Collection

You will learn:

• Tools for story collection
• From whom to collect stories
• Interviewing techniques to collect stories

What you will do:

• Watch the Lesson Three Video
• Activity: Develop a story collection tool, develop story calendar and choose from whom to collect a story

LIVE MEETING:

• Participate with other nonprofit leaders in a one hour discussion and practice interviewing

Step Four: Story Crafting and Storytelling

Story is about starting in one place, taking your audience along and ending up in another place.  This is called a story arc or narrative arc, which is a tool to help you map your story.  

You will learn:

• The elements of the narrative arc
• How to craft a compelling story
• Where to tell your stories

What you will do:

• Watch the Lesson Four Video
• Activity:  Interview someone, craft the written version of their story and decide where to tell the story

LIVE MEETING:

• Participate with other nonprofit leaders in a one hour discussion and tell us the story