Did You Hear the Great News?
Ten tips for sharing encouraging results
One of the most powerful tools available for influencing a culture is also one of the simplest and most overlooked. It is story-telling. Today's moviegoers pay to be captivated by a good story. Sure, the cinema story is propped up with special effects and marquee talent, but no amount of production budget can ever cover for lack of a story. Similarly, the public surrounding you and your CCF sub-awardees is thirsty for encouraging stories.
The benefits of gathering, documenting and distributing even the smallest success story are huge. Just to name a few of the benefits:
- Seeing a story in writing, on a video, or hearing it as part of a public presentation is a form of positive recognition that doesn't cost much but time.
- A story becomes a living example of how to achieve results.
- A story encourages sub-awardees and clients to repeat their positive performances.
- Donors and volunteers love to be able to point to something specific that was accomplished.
- Stories are contagious and can be repeated in many forums at low cost.
- Organizations become the stories that are told and treasured – you can shape an organizational culture by choosing and using stories of success.
- Used as part of your p.r. or marketing strategy, a story can be the slingshot that puts you in the spotlight with a much larger audience.
In spite of the obvious, abundant benefits of capturing and disseminating successes in story form, it is rarely done with the frequency it deserves. Here are ten tips to get you started:
- Collect quotes. Strike when the iron is hot. Be ready to note a quote at the times when your sub-awardees and/or their clients are likely to be "talking story." Then use the quotes that support the primary message you want to reinforce.
- Rehearse your own quotes. Practice saying and writing the core of your mission and story in as few words as possible. Always say it the same way whether in public, a small meeting, a press interview or in your marketing and training literature.
- Regularly conduct site visits to each organization to interview people and take pictures of service delivery in action. This is a form of recognition and measurement being accomplished simultaneously. When organizations expect you to come story collecting on a regular basis, they may actually begin to do more visible service delivery in anticipation.
- Highlight service delivery stories in multiple outlets: Web sites, newsletters, press releases, videos, training and client handbooks, fundraising collateral, letters, and in live events such as client conferences.
- Create a low-cost promotional video. A 5-7 minute video can be produced by a local college or junior college communications department, by a local TV station, or even a high school communications department or service club. Getting a suitable video produced could even be a great Eagle Scout service project. Include interviews with several client organizations, a summary of results, and a few words from key leadership, staff and volunteers. Be sure to get footage outside of the office or conference room, from out in the field. With a personal story, you don't need special effects to captivate and motivate. A video can be distributed to funders, sponsors, partners, and the media.
- Establish a relationship with both print and broadcast media personnel. Regularly provide them with succinct, sound-bitable stories and quotes.
- When videos or photos are taken at events and in conjunction with service delivery, be sure to get a signed release for the use of the image, signed by the subject or parent/guardian.
- Watch for what the news outlets find as newsworthy. Then create a hook that makes your stories relevant to the interests of the day. As an example, a sub-awardee may show a 10% decline in homelessness over a 16-month period for a particular community. This fact is meaningless apart from a context that shows homelessness rising in other similar communities or in light of trends in the other direction.
- Questions posed by news sources presume a point of view that matters to the news source but may not serve the point of view of the organization. There is no obligation on you to answer the question as asked. Frame the question so you can answer it with your story (see # 2, above) and consistently reinforce it, or don't answer it.
- Send out press releases and invite media to attend training sessions and sub-award disbursement ceremonies, organizational meetings graduations, and events that celebrate milestones.
In a small, lean organization, the task of p.r. and marketing is everyone's job. Yet it is as natural, simple and powerful as gathering and telling stories both large and small.
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