What's Your Story?

While touring a local nonprofit this Friday, it hit me. The painfully obvious phrase "It's all about the stories" just kept on smackin' me in the forehead. I had been looking for a simple way to communicate to nonprofits about the importance, and practical use of their Web presence and surely this was it.

Just the day before the thought of conducting a seminar about nonprofit marketing and fund-raising while making pottery and drawing the parallel between the two:

1. For me, pots are all about their ability to communicate a story - not be purely functional vessels that do a day-to-day task. There's nothing wrong with purely functional pottery - there's nothing better than eating off of handmade stoneware - it has the power to turn the mudane into something much more... I just like to think there's more to it...
   
   
2. The Web, as a nonprofit tool, is a fruit from the same tree.
   
   While there is nothing wrong with for-profit brochureware on the Web (it serves the purpose of communicating the basics of a business and provides a place for traditional feature/benefit sales while also reinforcing an organization's brand and culture), the medium is capable of much more.
   
   I firmly believe the nonprofit community is responsible for tapping into those capabilities. They're responsible for representing the stories of their clients via their Web presence - enabling their readers to relate and feel something as they surf - provide a new and striking level of understanding - like the stories are connected to real individuals that we they care can't resist caring about.
   
   In essence, if a site visitor doesn't have the opportunity to feel what they would experience if they were to tour your facility in person, you're robbing visitors of a heart-level understanding of what you're all about - which will ultimately translate in a lost financial opportunity for the organization. The Web is a tool that needs to be directly integrated into your strategic plan - with real goals and real metrics and real marketing support. Placing it on the backburner because of a lack of resources or a lack of understanding simply isn't an option in a marketplace that is witnessing dramatic funding cuts from government sources. As federal and state funds dry up, nonprofits must effectively use the tools at their disposal to reach non-government funding sources.

I don't pretend to understand every in and out of the nonprofit sector (or the Web medium, for that matter), but I understand enough to know that what I experienced in person at this local nonprofit is not represented in the organization's electronic face to the world. What I read online is a brochure, what I saw in person were real-life stories attached to real-life people - that I couldn't help but are about.

I spent about 2 hours after I got home from the tour looking for examples of successful story telling and ended up getting stuck on one nonprofit (Center for Digital Storytelling) who is all about story telling in the electronic medium. Their service won't answer every need, but, if you're someone that naturally draws parallels, you'll undoubtedly apply some of the lessons they teach to your own site or your own communication style as you talk about what you bring to your local community through nonprofit service.

Check out a sample of the curriculum they use in their courses - I'm still absorbing the document myself, but have been impressed with both the material and the examples of individual stories they provide on their site.

So... whether it's trying to make pots communicate more explicitly in order to invite individuals into a conversation, or a Web site that gets creative to communicate about it's clients... at the end of the day, it's all about the stories...