COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE
Powerful storytelling for fundraising What stories you tell, as well as how and when, can make or break your nonprofit’s fundraising goals
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rofessional fundraising auctioneers help build stronger nonprofit organizations by growing their donor bases and increasing their fundraising prowess. But what is the single most important thing you can do during a nonprofit event? Tell a story. Lori Jacobwith from Ignited Fundraising recently spoke on storytelling for fundraising at the 2021 International Auctioneers Conference & Show in Minneapolis. Named one of America’s Top 25 Fundraising Experts, Lori is an internationally recognized master storyteller and fundraising culture change expert. She has more than 35 years’ experience helping nonprofit organizations raise more than $450 million dollars from individual donors. And counting.
Why stories work As a benefit auctioneer you’ve probably told many stories. Stories work because they make us feel. Our brains are wired to think in story. Ultimately, you want an attendee at an event to make the decision to become a 36 AUCTIONEERS.ORG
donor, but Lori points out that if we cannot feel something, we cannot make a decision. She says everything we do is based on a story we tell ourselves. “Both our head and our heart have to be engaged in order to make a decision,” she said. “When you’re inviting someone to give $10,000 at that fund-a-need event, we want them to feel like a superhero.” Lori uses a picture of a pointing man riding on a speeding elephant to illustrate the tension that goes on in our brains. The elephant represents the emotional side of our brain— the love, compassion and empathy—these are the larger feelings that we have. She says we can get paralyzed and think we’re in control if we’re only thinking in the analytical side of our brains because, “knowledge doesn’t cause people to take action.” Benefit auctioneers need to tell stories that get the elephant and the man to work together. But what if you’re working with an organization that’s mission is confusing, or its funding doesn’t make sense, or they don’t
know how to talk about themselves? Just help them talk about one person. “Even if they help… keep the water clean… there’s somebody who benefits because the water is clean,” Lori says. In telling the story of that one person, auctioneers should focus on empathy, not sympathy. “Sympathy is a distancing emotion, empathy is a connecting emotion,” Lori says. “Our job is to remind folks that they’re the superhero—the person we’re helping impact—not us.
What is a story? “A story is a slice, a tiny moment in the day of an organization that shows the impact on one person,” Lori says. In many cases, auctioneers are speaking to crowds of potential donors who will have no way of relating to or connecting to someone’s story. In that case, Lori says it’s important to put a face on what the story is and share what it takes to make the impact.