![\"family](\"https:\/\/causevox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/great-depression.jpg\" "\\"great-depression\\"")
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Quick!\u00a0 Which would you rather experience?<\/p>\n
A) A gorgeous five-minute video of beautiful (but unrelated) images and clips, or<\/p>\n
B) A five-page story from the diary of a grandmother living through the Great Depression<\/p>\n
If you want to hear what granny had to say, you probably already understand where we\u2019re going with this post: storytelling is more important than slick video production.<\/p>\n
Now, of course, this is the falsest of false dichotomies \u2013 you don\u2019t have to choose between the two!\u00a0 Why not produce a slick video that also<\/em> tells a captivating story?\u00a0 You can<\/em>, and many of the most successful CauseVox campaign pages have done exactly that<\/em>.\u00a0 But our point here is one of focus:<\/p>\n We think the story should come first, and be at the center of a campaign.<\/p>\n The stories a nonprofit can tell in a campaign are quite varied.\u00a0 An organization can tell its own story; the story of how founders encountered a worthy cause and became dedicated to it.\u00a0 An organization can tell the story of its beneficiaries; the story of the people whose lives were made better by the organization\u2019s activities and successes.\u00a0 An organization can tell the story of its supporters; how people now meet the organization and become a part of a greater mission.\u00a0 An organization can even tell the story of its vision for the future.<\/p>\n However you do it, make sure you tell the darn story<\/em>.<\/p>\n And to do that, you need to find the right words.<\/p>\n If you don\u2019t spend time getting the words of the story right, you\u2019ll be in the ballpark, but you\u2019ll be missing qualities that can have a huge impact on inspiring supporters:\u00a0 coherence, emotional impact, clarity, and more.\u00a0 For example, you could explain why scholarships are beneficial to the public off the top of your head.\u00a0 People would get the message, sure, but you\u2019d probably lose a few listeners along the way and wouldn\u2019t have the same impact as the person who sat down, organized his or her thoughts, and wrote and revised until they had this:<\/p>\n \u201cA mind is a terrible thing to waste.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s part of our common language, now, but wasn\u2019t famous until created and used by the United Negro College Fund in a campaign in 1972.\u00a0 It\u2019s the most economical way for the UNCF to tell its \u201cstory,\u201d and they are still using it to this very day.\u00a0 Of course, a tagline is not exactly the same as a story, but you can see the point of choosing just the right words for your organization.<\/p>\n With luck, if you tell your story in the right way, you might still be promoting your<\/em> mission 40 years from now, just like the UNCF is.<\/p>\n