I hinted at it in my last blog about the two organisations in India that connect donors with nonprofits. In this blog I aim to look at it further.
This argument has its parallels in other fields, including in the social sciences where it is framed as an argument between positivists and ethnographers. I blogged about another aspect of it under the title Whiteboards and herbal tea. In that I was alluding to an important debate about foundation funding criteria between two leading thinkers in contemporary American philanthropy William Schambra and Paul Brest .
However, my mind at present is focused on making your case for support and how you might construct appeals. My contention is that words and stories (i.e. the qualitative elements) are far more powerful than numbers and statistics (the quantitative). Another argument might be that pictures are vitally important: but that's an argument for another day.
The argument could also be framed in the heart versus head rubric. Of course, I am not arguing that some numeric data may not be important. For example, when you are making a case for support for a capital campaign it will be important to explain the costing which your campaign is based. It may also be important to provide some information about your organisations overall finances and its balance sheet. Those potential donors who may be considering making very large gifts might (and I emphasise might because it is far from always the case) apply their ‘investment logic’ before they commit to a gift. Supposing, for instance, that they come from the world of business investment decision-making?
However, it is my belief that for major gifts decisions, in particular, donations are more often made for moral, ethical or even emotional reasons. Donors support medical projects because of a personal history touched by health and medicine. They support educational institutions, again because of a personal history touched by education: and, often as an alumna/us of the institution that they are supporting.
In less biographically touching appeals, I still believe that the emotional, 'heart' pulling effect of stories and the words are far more convincing than statistics. This is true even when the statistics are grim. It is shocking to point out that more than 10 percent of the world lives on less than a dollar a day or, that 17,000 children under age five die every day.
However, if you can really tell the story, or paint the picture of a child born in a village in sub Saharan Africa to parents whose every waking moment was devoted to scouring for such miserable sustenance that the harsh environment provided. And that even this survival was everyday threatened by effects of climate change and political upheavals. And then your story continues, that the future of that child can be met with appropriate help and that they will survive and even thrive. Or better still, you can show how existing funding is changing the ecosystem and infrastructure in the community where that child lives. In summary, tell a story or paint a picture showing there is hope. Isn't that far more compelling than bare statistics?
The great advantage of storytelling over fact-telling is especially reinforced in these examples from the SOFII website *, each of which uses various combinations of media and technology. Another advantage of making your case with stories is that they lend themselves to being retold in multiple ways (and there's only so much you can do with numbers!!)
- Every day in developing countries thousands of women (mainly) face the difficult task of fetching and carrying water from its source to their homes. It's a grueling daily duty most donors would find very hard to imagine. This is the story told by WaterAid
- Martin was volunteering in Afghanistan with when he met a young girl called Hadisa. At eight months old, she was carried hundreds of miles by her father to receive treatment after the village elders tried to stone her to death for the shame they thought she brought to their community. The medical facilities in Kabul were not equipped to deal with the severity of Hadisa’s condition. This was the story that led to Martin founding Facing the World.
- It’s easy for you to ignore a homeless person as they walk past them on the street, but if you had a homeless person telling their story on your phone for three days you would see that the issues behind youth homelessness are complex and varied.
Please add your own examples of compelling stories, well told (or even the compelling use of numbers!)
* BTW Here also is the story of SOFII told by its founder - himself a master of storytelling.
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