Storytelling for Board Members: How to Unleash New Energy and Commitment
Storytelling for board members just might be a lost art.
The fact is, most board members simply don’t know what to say when they have the opportunity to talk about their cause!
Once a board member actually asked me:
“If I get a chance to talk about my nonprofit, what do I say?”
Guess we have some work to do!
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Here are some takeaways from the presentation that Lori Jacobwith and I are giving at AFPICON on Sunday. Thought you’d enjoy them!
Storytelling for board members – it works!
When board members start telling their OWN STORIES, magic can happen!
Watch your board members come alive when they talk about why they care so much about your cause. THIS is how to evoke their passion and energy!
Here’s how to activate their enthusiasm for the cause, and for fundraising.
Here are 5 different stories that board members need to be able to tell – with exercises to support them:
Exercise #1: “Why do I care?”
Wy not ask your board members to share why they care about your cause?
And many may have deeply personal reasons for caring. They may have authentic, burning stories that are part of family legacy, their own history or struggles.
This is their personal story. Here’s how to help them re-discover their personal, authentic connection to your work.
Find out how we can help you achieve your fundraising goals with world-class consulting and custom training.
How to set up this exercise: “Why do I care?”
- Ask your board members to think about why they care about your cause. What would they say if someone asked them?
- Then have them stand, find a partner, and get ready to share their story.
- Then say “start!” and give each partner 30 seconds to share his or her story of why they care.
- Then say “change partners!” and let them do this again with a new partner.
- Run thru 4 or 5 sets of partners so board members can get lots of practice.
This is one of my favorite exercises, every board retreat we do, starts here.
Exercise #2: Why should someone contribute to our organization?
This one is really easy. After the mingle exercise that I describe above, put board members in small groups of 3-5 people.
Ask them to work as a group and come up with 5 reasons why someone should contribute to your organization.
When your board members discuss this among themselves, I’m always amazed.
How wonderful to hear your board members telling each other how important your cause is and why it deserves support!
And sometimes, board members can nail your case for support better than you can!
Exercise #3: Story about someone who your organization has helped.
Every board member needs a SIMPLE three sentence story about a real person impacted by your nonprofit.
It can be a kid, an animal, a family, a single mother, a grandmother, whoever.
A three-sentence story can go like this:
“There was this kid who . . . . (situation)
And then this happened: . . . . .(drama – crisis)
And we were able to help them this way . . . (happy ending)
Work with them in small groups on this.
Exercise #4: What are we raising money for?
This is a story about where the money goes.
Bring two or three organizational leaders up to the front, and interview them. Try to get board members to ask questions and generate a discussion.
- What difference to private contributions make in our organization?
- “Why do we even need private contributions anyway?
- “Why does our work cost so much?
- “Where exactly does the money go?
- “How many people are we helping in this program?
- “What else does this program really need? And how much would that cost?
- “How many people are we missing? What happens to them if we can’t help them?
- “What would we do if we had an additional $500k?
This exercise takes fundraising away from “money” and makes it about something real. It is amazingly powerful!
Exercise #5: Wouldn’t it be wonderful if?
This is a story about vision and possibility.
Ask each board member to share their idea of what wonderful things could happen if your organization was successful doing it’s amazing work.
I love, love asking board members to share this at the end of one of my workshops. It’s such a powerful visioning exercise!
BOTTOM LINE – Storytelling for board members.
When the board members share their vision for what your organization could possibly accomplish, they are re-igniting their own passion as they speak. You can see their eyes start to shine.
Storytelling for board members is a lost art.This is how to generate some enthusiasm for spreading the word, finding new friends and even fundraising!
These exercises are terrific morale boosters and board members love them!
Gail, this is spot on! I have been asking my Board members to tell me their stories as I hold get acquainted meetings with each of them. The way they are lit from inside when sharing their experiences and the difference our organization made for them is astonishing! I plan to incorporate your ideas in future meetings to help them become more comfortable in these situations.
Terrific Jody! Let me know how it goes!
You are a God send, Gail. Thank you for making it so easy to plug and play these exercises. Question: I’m trying to come up with a cute and catchy name for these ‘board education moments’ (yuck!) every month. Suggestions welcome!
This is fantastic! We have a small board, 7 people, and we’re spread over 4 states and one foreign country, so breaking into groups won’t work. However, we’re small enough that we can function as one group when we meet on the phone. I’m excited to get them talking and to hear each others ideas and comments and stories in the 5 exercises. This fits right in with what we’ve been slowly developing over the last year. Hopefully now we can pick up some speed.
I found #1 yesterday because I needed an exercise for our young
professionals board last night. A strategic goal is to develop a culture
of philanthropy. At the last meeting I talked about what this means
using the Haas study as a backdrop. We did an activity around that and
several people mentioned the need for an elevator pitch. Then someone
used the term “personal mission statement” which I LOVED! So, the
follow up was helping them to devise this last night. The Why Do You
Care exercise was extremely well received. They had amazing stories,
learned from each other, gained confidence, and by the fourth time, were
more succinct. (I was a bit generous with the time at about 90 seconds
per pair.) I stressed that sharing of yourself is one of the best
icebreakers because people are really interested in you, then they hear
something amazing and want to learn more.
Thanks Scott! give these a try and you’ll certainly pep them up!
WAY TO GO! :)
Ah yes, a brand for these education/training moments! I’ll have to mull on this!
Hi Gail, great info. Can you give me tips on #3? We are a very small non-profit history museum. Hard to come up with personal stories about how we have helped individuals. Thanks!
Excellent post! Here are a few more storytelling resources I’ve collected http://www.goinginternational.com/resources/storytelling/