Great stories get lost because they are often poorly told. The story-teller matters as much as the story. Simple, clear, emotional and true. Sometimes, we try too hard – when simple then becomes unexpected. Here is a brilliant one from a series for Marie Curie Cancer Care.
An unexpected story..
Posted in Agencies, Brand, Charity, Digital, Emotions, Fundraising, Giving, Ideas, Innovation, Insight, Inspiration, Not for profit, Philanthropy, Psychology, Stories, Strategy, Technology, Third Sector, TV and tagged Charity ad, Daffodil Campaign, Dominic West, Marie Curie, story.
Hi Steve
I attended the event yesterday in Edinburgh and thoroughly enjoyed it. As the CE of a charity, I am one of the guys who does everything but you gave me some excellent ideas to think about in taking our fund raising forward.
We work with some 15,000 young people every year at our 3 residential outdoor centres and I’ve been encouraging my staff teams to transmit to me the feedback from young people, their teachers and groups leaders. The story telling tool kit might be just the job to help this work.
I put together a document which included just one stand out, line from each child’s feedback. It covers 4x A4 pages and when it is read at one sitting, people come away with a warm feel about so many positive stories from young people. One down side is that fund providers and decision makers want everything reduced to a few paragraphs and I worry that few people will bother to read it. But we make it available in teachers rooms during their stay; hopefully it will prompt them to contribute to our story books.
My organisation has been around for 70 years and your enthusiasm for nostalgia really got me thinking. We also use campfires quite a bit and given their power, we will be giving more thought to their use in the future. Perhaps I’ll get some funders round the camp fire. If I get some money off them, I hope we might work together in the future.
Kind regards
Dave Spence
Chief Executive
SCOTTISH OUTDOOR EDUCATION CENTRES
Head Office
Loaningdale House
Biggar
ML12 6LX
Tel: 01899 221115
Mob: 07850 791 963
http://www.soec.org.uk
Dave….thank you for this..very much appreciated! Have a think about that book of quotes and maybe create a few smaller ‘books’ clustered together around types of stories…triumph, inspiration etc. The camp fire idea is great one….love it. Let me know how it goes and I really do hope we can work together. Stay in touch!