One of the easiest ways to improve your fundraising is to improve your storytelling. And a quick way to enhance your storytelling is to focus on the troubles.
Great adversity, a ruthless villain and bad things happening to nice people are irresistible story elements. A hero doesn’t impress unless there’s an enemy who just might win.
It’s peril that makes victory sweet.
An added benefit is that adversity is jam-packed with emotion.
In your fundraising, don’t jump too quickly to the end. Don’t skip over the hard parts so that you can spend time on the victory. Sure the success is the outcome your donor is providing. But the troubles, dangers, and difficulties are why the win is noteworthy and epic!
You bet, your donor needs to know about excellent outcomes. But they can’t appreciate the win unless they can see how near defeat might be. Or realize how tragedy was a foregone conclusion.
Let your donor experience the peril and the adversity.
They’ll love it. And you will, too.
How do you deal with adversity and trouble in your fundraising? How do you describe the villain in your story? I’d love to know how you tell your story.
photo credit: Edwin Andrade on Unsplash
