We watch and then we klatch. If you give your listener a cliffhanger, she can’t stop right there—er, she can’t let go. She HAS to hear the end of the story. This sequence…
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Sometimes it helps to see what not to do. Workshop participants often want examples of great stories but in a perfect world, they would have great and not so great examples…
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My kid saw an Elmo toothbrush at the grocery store the other day and insisted I buy it. He already had a toothbrush at home but it never fired him up…
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This ad is a good example of an organization showing how it can change your life without ever talking about the mechanics of what it does. Please watch this story and then go through…
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Oh, jargon. All dressed up and trying to get invited to every little shindig. That fancy institutional lingo, so cozy in your messaging, sucks the blood out of your stories. Jargon stamps…
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Are you allergic to cats? Babies? Do you like stories about ’em anyway? Then you oughtta know that during a recent webinar, organized by the wonderful organization Washington Nonprofits, I asked the participants to name a…
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How about this year we all commit to owning our awesomeness in our stories? I just read a mediocre story on a respected nonprofit’s site. A story that had so much potential but…
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Before you watch the video (which you may have seen already and should watch again anyway) and before you read the NPR article about it (which has spoilers so watch the…
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Board trainings are the best. One day, a buttoned up guy with a fabulous head of silver hair—we’ll call him Peter—moved himself to tears. He sat in a windowless conference room surrounded by…
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Here is a fake statistic that feels plausible to me. More than 90% of nonprofit stories star the same two characters; the person receiving the service and the provider of that…