Your 5-Step Plan for Powerful Year-End Appeal Storytelling

Inside: a 5-part outline for crafting a year-end appeal story that’s visionary, emotional, and engaging.

Your year-end appeal writing process is likely underway.

Ideally, you’re planning communications across several channels - your website, emails, social media, and direct mail. The messages you put out should work together to tell a cohesive story. Individually, they need to stand on their own, but they should also complement each other and build a narrative that’s emotional and engaging.

To do that, you need to start by writing your appeal’s overarching story.

Telling a powerful story isn’t only about sharing testimonials and anecdotes (those are great, though!). It’s also about using your mission, vision, and impact data to paint a picture of what the world is like now - and how you’re working to transform it into something better.

You can create a year-end appeal story with this 5-step outline:

1. Define the problem your nonprofit is trying to solve.

Describe your problem as simply as possible in clear, emotional language.

Imagine you’re explaining this problem to a five year old. What would you say? When we talk to children, we naturally speak without jargon and drop the armor of trying to sound smart and professional. This makes your message naturally more emotionally appealing.

Instead of saying, “we seek to address housing insecurities that price low-income households out of quality housing,”

say: “Too many people who need homes can’t find a clean, safe place to live at a price they can afford.”

Next, add 1 powerful stat that drives the extent of your problem home.

“1 in 10 households is in danger of losing their home because they can’t make mortgage or rent payments.”

Then, how does the problem affect real people?

Struggling to pay for housing means people also often struggle with paying for food, medicine, childcare, and transportation. They also suffer from anxiety and depression at high rates, putting their jobs and education at risk.

So, your PROBLEM is:

Too many people who need homes can’t find a clean, safe place to live at a price they can afford. 1 in 10 households is in danger of losing their home because they can’t make mortgage or rent payments. Struggling to pay for housing means people also can’t afford food, medicine, childcare, and transportation. They suffer from anxiety and depression at high rates, putting their jobs and education at risk.

**This doesn’t mean that this whole paragraph makes it into every one of your communications! It might make it into your appeal letter and email, and you may uses pieces of it in several social media posts. The point is to talk about this problem throughout your communications. Every story needs a BEFORE and AFTER; this is your BEFORE.

2. Explain the solution you provide.

How does your organization seek to solve the problem you described? And what makes your solution uniquely powerful and effective?

Again, keep it simple and clear! You don’t need to describe every program and service you offer. What’s your big picture solution and how is it special and different from what other solutions offer?

Let’s go back to the example of an organization trying to address housing insecurity. They’ve got a variety of programs, some that provide subsidies for housing, some that help with housing searches, some that are geared toward specific demographics, like veterans and seniors. In addition, they have a policy and advocacy arm that seeks changes in laws to reduce housing insecurity.

Their donor-forward solution is:

We fight to make sure every person in our community has safe, affordable housing. We do this by helping people find and stay in their homes - and by working for a more fair, stable housing economy in our community.

3. Outline the obstacle you face to providing that solution.

Many organizations miss this step in their storytelling. It’s crucial, though, to creating a sense of urgency for the donor - and for letting them know their gift is absolutely necessary.

Some examples of obstacles:

• We’re running out of time. You might be running out of time because your problem is time-sensitive (like environmental or climate-change related issues) or because you have a matching gift with a deadline.

• COVID19 has made the problem worse. If you seek to solve a problem that’s been exacerbated by everything going on in the past year and a half, talk about that.

• The need is greater than our funding. If you currently serve 1000 clients a year, but 3000 could use your programs, say that. Define the gap between the need and the $ you have to work with.

4. Ask the donor to help.

You need a super-clear, easy-to-follow-through-on CTA for every communication across every channel.

Different channels and donor segments will likely have different CTAs.

For example, the CTA you make of direct-mail only monthly givers will be different than the CTA for first-time donors who come across your appeal on Facebook.

To keep your story and appeal messaging consistent, create a unique landing page for your year-end appeal. This way, they don’t get directed to your website homepage and get distracted before they’ve had a chance to make a donation.

It should take less than a minute for them to complete the transaction.

5. What’s your nonprofit’s happily ever after?

This is another piece nonprofits often miss in storytelling. Your story isn’t just about the solution you provide; it’s about the world you’re trying to create. You want to paint a picture of the world in which your problem has been eradicated.

Back to our housing insecurity organization, its vision might be:

We dream of a world where everyone has a place to call their own.

or

We dream of a world where no veteran [or senior/child/mom and dad] ever has to worry about losing their home.

or

We working towards a community where anyone who wants to rent or buy a home has access to plenty of safe, clean affordable options.

This last piece - your happily ever after - gives potential donors a fully-formed story with a beginning, middle, and end. And it’s inspiring! When you couple that inspirational vision with a great ask, you’ll find donors are motivated to help you change the world with your solution.

Conclusion

These 5 pieces make up the big picture narrative that shape your year-end appeal and every communication you send throughout the season:

1. Define the problem.

2. Explain your solution.

3. Outline the obstacle.

4. Ask donors to help.

5. Share your vision of a better world.

You might tell your story in slightly different ways and with slightly different words, but the basic narrative will stay the same. This keeps your messaging focused and makes sure that every piece of copy and content for your appeal complements and supports the others.

Need help nailing down your story?

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