Did you catch our first LinkedIn live event? Watch it now!

This event took place on LinkedIn Live on Thursday, May 2, 2024. Hosted by Carly Euler, MemoryFox‘s Chris Miano and Storyraise‘s Josh Kligman discussed how to collect great stories and share them with compelling digital reports.

Full Transcript:

0:04Hello everybody welcome welcome thank you for joining us for our first LinkedIn live event I am so thrilled to

0:11be trying this out thank you Josh for suggesting this and I’m already just so pumped and I’m sure we’re going to

0:17continue to do these um but so exciting we had so many people that uh registered

0:23to come today and I hope that you all are um coming in hopefully you’ll come in in the next few minutes we love to

0:28see you um I am Carly uler I’m the marketing manager at memory Fox and yeah like I

0:35said welcome and please please if you have any questions about this topic anytime during the presentation please

0:41drop them in the chat we are dying to hear your questions and I know that Chris and Josh will answer them I know

0:47it I’m very confident in that but um hey I always like to be

0:52super prompt so I’m just gonna go ahead and hop in what do you guys

0:58think all right let’s do it yeah let’s do it I’m just going to

1:03start by introducing both of our guests here today so first I would like to introduce Chris manano Chris is the

1:11founder and CEO of memory Fox uh he spent eight years in the Army where he traveled around the world and when he

1:17did that he was learning about the power of Storytelling and how it is a tool that connects people across cultures

1:23generations and socioeconomic backgrounds since then Chris has made it his mission to elevate the stories of

1:29real human beings and he believes that through authentic storytelling the world can become a more inclusive and

1:35Equitable place for everyone thanks for joining us today Chris thank

1:41you and I would love to introduce our next special guest um Josh is the CEO of

1:47story raay and has been working with nonprofits on campaigns strategy sales and partnership since 2001 okay 2001

1:55that was a long time ago Josh Josh is helping thousands of nonprofits create more engaging digital reports and

2:02campaigns with story Rays throughout his career he has helped launch and run

2:07nonprofit brand campaigns and media Partnerships nationally and locally for 10 years using television outdoor radio

2:15and digital to amplify the reach and provide demonstrated value for nonprofits thank you for joining us Josh

2:21yeah thanks for having me and just as a reminder to everybody watching today’s agenda is going to be

2:28broken down into three parts so first Chris is going to share his simple

2:33three-step me uh three-step strategy to collecting video um he’s and then he’s

2:38also going to chat um about specifically how to get those videos from your community as well as some ethical

2:44considerations that are necessary to to do no harm to your community second Josh

2:50he’s going to take a deep dive telling us um all of his insights into building

2:56great solicitation reports that really Inspire action and then third I

3:01personally have a ton of questions for both of our guests ready to go but I would love it if you would all add your

3:08questions in the chat as well throughout the whole session like I mentioned and I will do my best to make sure that I get

3:13as many of those answered as possible so there’s that what do you say

3:19let’s dive in Chris take it away all right let me share my

3:25screen uh audience window

3:31alrighty can can you see oh there we go all right this is new technology for us using LinkedIn live so we’re we’re we’re

3:39gonna work through it so all right so thank you Carly um and so I just start

3:44off with this um I like to think about video storytelling along this sort of framework if someone asks what is your

3:51mission can you show them video stories in general storytelling content it’s the

3:56best way to resonate with potential donors and attract volunteers um storytelling is

4:02fundamental to who we are as humans and so today we’re going to talk

4:08about that um we’re going to cover a lot of ground we’re gonna first we’re going to go over how to build an actual video

4:14collection campaign we’re going to go through some examples and why that they were successful uh we’re also going to

4:20go through some tips on how you can get started collecting great stories sometimes it’s that first that first

4:26step that becomes the most difficult and uh one of things is one of things I’m passionate about is uh ethical story

4:33time and we’re going to talk about the considerations and implications and how in the way that you tell stories and the

4:38way we can all tell stories more ethically so why is video storytelling

4:44so important um I’m actually a pretty big stats nart and so I hope you all kind of find it interesting to look at

4:50the numbers um as much as I do as see why this is such an impactful Tool uh

4:55above all else right you’ll raise more funds um class actually did a study and

5:01they found that fundraising cor uh campaign that incorporate video um almost double the amount of funding than

5:07campaigns that don’t right and that totally makes sense video gives people a real window into their mission um and

5:13storytelling is the best way to leverage video um it’s just like nothing else uh

5:18it’s more memorable viewers retain vastly more information when they see it through video uh people telling stories

5:24to other people it’s a very Primal human function uh long before people could even

5:30and and this this is how information was transferred for thousands of years you know from Virgil to Homer to Gilgamesh

5:38um it’s the oldest tradition that we have they they told stories and that’s that’s just how we all communicated for

5:43a long time lastly it’s what people want short short form video like Instagram

5:50Tik Tok others um they really have exploded as attention spans have dovetailed and so we like to tell

5:56stories about our impact that meet the tastes of the time and this this is what people are using these days so and I

6:02feel like in a lot of ways nonprofits have been sort of given a impossible task of standing out in this

6:08increasingly crowded attention economy and so authentic Grassroots impact video

6:14Community generated video that helps level the playing field that’s your secret power and it’s going on at your

6:21organization every single day so uh you know that’s why we build memory foxes to help you be able to collect all that I

6:28mean it’s just so amazing and corporations spend millions of dollars every year trying to replicate

6:34it so uh one of the organizations that we work with is KS Health connections um

6:40and they collected Community generated video stories to demonstrate qualitative impact for their Grant application um

6:47they wanted to give a window into their mission and it worked they got the grant uh so let’s uh go ahead and watch this

6:53amazing video I love the mentors and I love that they help me in motivate me

7:00and push me up when I’m feeling now and um I stop or I’m say I can’t do it they

7:06always say I can’t but I always say I can’t but they always say I can’t do it

7:12never say you can’t so I love that they motivate me all this time and we’re

7:17strong fit kids love it you know like an authentic engaging video that brings

7:23like the mission right into the living room with a person who’s watching it right um You can we can all agree

7:30especially if those of us who are parents or even not I mean this is the best content there is right Grassroots

7:35Beautiful Stories from people um who are experiencing the mission so we know

7:41video is important we know stories are important but how do we actually start collecting it right it’s sort of that

7:47first step that becomes difficult and so we built a simple framework at mammory Fox to help develop video strategy when

7:53I see say simple I really mean that it’s simple video does not have to be hard um

8:00I know everybody thinks it’s very expensive and for like big corporations and things like that but if you’re leveraging Community generated content

8:06there is an understanding that it that it will be a little loose it doesn’t have to be perfect and it’s accessible

8:11to everybody um if you stick with this strategy you’ll always end up with great

8:17content and great stories um to share with you know your community so step one

8:22before you even go talk to somebody start at the end result what are we trying to accomplish here is it for a

8:27social media campaign a donor report for a grant for a Gala uh what what type of

8:33content would be best a slideshow a single video a snippet for Instagram stories it could be a lot of different

8:39things right but start at the end and then work your way backwards from there on to ensure that you get at the result

8:46that your time will be well spent and invested invested well so as you start to think about who to collect Community

8:52generated content from step two what type of content will satisfy the requirements for step one do we want

8:59testimonials or do we want video of the mission in action do we want videos from Mission beneficiaries from volunteers

9:06maybe staff or donors who feel passionately about the mission right video can come from everywhere every

9:12single person in your organization is an amplificate is a is a way a method to amplify their story and the story of

9:19your organization and unite those things with the viewer and step three right finally you

9:25know what do you want to accomplish what are the questions we want to ask that will elicit great responses so in a lot

9:34of ways great questions they can lead to Great answers um but poor questions

9:39they’re going to cause your storytellers to lock up and prevent them from sharing their truth and that’s what we’re doing right we’re trying to elevate people

9:46we’re trying to be ethical About It by giving them a platform to to share their truth and to honor them um so you know

9:53to wrap it up like I said it’s very simple what do you want to accomplish what type of content will help you

9:58achieve that and then what call to actions or questions will help you get that

10:04content so um you know so remember that short video that we used earlier um they

10:10actually used this process and it really does work um Carly’s actually going to drop the worksheet in the CH in the chat

10:17um so you can do this yourself and it contains this exact example so you can uh you can do this on your own but just

10:24as a quick overview of what they did and how they come up with their videos they first determined that they want wanted

10:29Community generated video to attach to their Grant application but they also wanted video to leverage on social media

10:36to increase attendance at their programs which is obviously a big big challenge as well step two the inputs they

10:44determine that the very best videos would be testimonials from kids and from parents enjoying the mission um

10:50obviously kind of a no-brainer here you saw the video beautiful beautiful beautiful that’s the best content in the

10:55world um in this step also consider the conent requirements this campaign had

11:01children so they needed consent from parents um to be able to share and that’s one thing that memory Fox was

11:06able to help with is that for them to be able to track consent from all the parents at the at the event um and

11:12finally their called to actions the questions they asked they were very Crystal Clear what was the most important thing that you learned

11:18open-ended but with some clear direction to it um would you recommend us and why why is always a great question it it it

11:25really gives someone the space and the platform to really speak their truth um and so here are some examples of

11:32organizations who we’ve seen do some really great um amazing Community generated content um campaigns Arbor Day

11:40Foundation um they’re wildly successful collecting content from their tree planting events um all over the country

11:47um so you can imagine it’s quite an impressive feat we found that organizations who truly care for the content the stories they actually get a

11:55lot of a higher degree of response if they’re showing that they’re being good stewards of these these con this content

12:01and they’re making sure to um keep everything organized they also tie their collection campaigns to specific

12:08outcomes um for example they designate a corporate sponsor that would be receiving the content so American

12:14Express FedEx Etc and that helps makes things a little more tangible um a little more a little more work up front

12:21but again it’s about engagement and getting people to share their stories so I just think that’s a really cool one

12:26here’s a really neat one from we were first getting started um Urban League of Metro Seattle their key to success was

12:33really knowing Their audience one of their focus areas is public health and during the pandemic they recognized that

12:38the community had vaccine hesitancy and questions about covid-19 so they collected videos from children asking

12:46questions about covid and the vaccine and the virus and then they sent those videos to trusted doctors and they

12:52assembled those all into like cool YouTube videos um and it’s directly related to an increase in vaccinations

12:57in their Community right kids doctors it’s a great combination to influencing people and it’s all video and it’s all

13:03video stories re Across America they host their annual refling event um in

13:10December every year their 2023 event took place at thousands of Ceremonies Across the Nation and what they did is

13:17they collected content from each one of these to be able to put in their reports to be able to assemble um you know to

13:23send their their stakeholders and their Grant making organizations that they work with collected over 8,000 people

13:29pieces of content so they were able to you know assemble these into beautiful cataloges for everybody um and and and

13:35it really it really is a great way to show impact and for them it was just multiple touch points it’s it’s

13:41reinforcing The Collection you’re not just collecting at that exact moment but you’re collecting you’re reminding

13:46people um you know a month from now like hey following up with people to be able to submit their content did you guys

13:52take any pictures or videos um can you please send them to me you know hopefully using a tool like memory Fox

13:57but you could use a Google Drive as well so you have a plan how do you actually start collecting the content

14:04right this is the part where a lot of people get caught up um it is not trivial but we’ve got some great ways

14:09that our customers have been able to collect content uh Community generated content that will be very valuable to

14:15you so uh one of the things that’s really cool and it can be a lot of fun is instead of a photo booth which is

14:21which is okay try setting up a story booth at your programs and events um and

14:26and if it’s light-hearted enough you can really have some fun with it and make it kind of silly and and especially if it

14:32includes kids and hell even if it has a little bit of wine there that can be a fun way to get people to loosen up and

14:38talk about you know why why did they first start volunteering her where how

14:43did they first get connected to the organization and things like that some really beautiful stories that happen

14:48because people are are in person um also it generates a little enthusiasm right

14:54people are are contributing stories and then they go tell their friends at the program or event and then they come over

14:59too so you’re generating like a cycle of enthusiasm um that can really really be a great benefit to

15:06you uh this is another really cool thing designate a Content collection Champion

15:11can’t stress that enough so take pull aside a volunteer or a uh employee um or

15:17whomever and select them to kind of have them be the story collector for the event um make them aware of the timeline

15:24any notable special guests give them like a Content uh check list that they

15:30can have like hey collect a story from the executive director collect a story from these key board members or these

15:35volunteers Etc um the staff members they’re too busy right there needs to be someone who is like the champion for it

15:42at your programs and events and and someone who’s obviously enthusiastic about it and they can just run around

15:47and that’s what uh family Giving Tree did and they had 148 submissions from that event which is really cool and

15:53provided a tremendous amount of value during the reporting phase where they took all these pieces of content and

15:58were to report on their programs to their uh donors and

16:03board uh another thing that’s very important ask great questions and G get great stories just to drill down on this

16:09a little bit more um it’s essential to move Beyond Simple open-ended questions right targeted questions I always think

16:16of it like a kid test my kids if I ask them how you know at school today what did you learn it’s just like open-ended

16:23right but if I ask them a very specific question how was gym class today or how was you know whatever then they could

16:28they’re a little more articulate about their response so we want to lead people to success so instead of tell your story

16:34tell us your story how has your life been impacted by volunteering with this organization right little more clear

16:40elevates them to be able to tell the story that they want to be able to tell um tell us about the volunteer work that

16:46you do tell us about the first time you volunteered with how did it make you feel I love that one that’s always a

16:52really cool one because everybody can remember the first time that they volunteered or the first time that they

16:58donated what really resonated with them um that’s a very emotional event and uh

17:03you know it it sets off a lot of things in their brain and releases all those fuzzy endorphins that make people happy

17:09and makes them a deeper part of your community when you show that you really care about their story um another one

17:15and this is one is a little near and dear to my heart as a veteran uh Carly uler who is our marketing director put

17:21this all together um her Mantra always is is they can’t say yes if you never ask and I always take that to heart and

17:28um you know I always admire her her her her ability to get after things like this she actually reached out to an

17:34actual Vietnam Medal of Honor recipient his name was Colonel Barney Barnum and this was at a a nonprofit that she used

17:40to work with with that dealt with veterans and she fearlessly asked him to attend an event and not only did he

17:46attend the event he told a powerful story and made a donation and opened up some doors to more funding um so really

17:53like what it gets down to even more is that you’re building a culture of Storytelling to your organization asking

17:58for testimonials across multiple channels it shouldn’t just be when the organization you you know that funds you

18:05is asking for a report um you know you should be collecting these things all year around so you have them at your

18:11fingertips um and by creating a culture of Storytelling you can accomplish that your newsletters every time you’re on

18:17social media and your social posts ask for interactions in the comments the more you ask the more you collect and

18:23and and at the very least right it demonstrates your commitment and your values your story as an organization

18:30that you’re committed to elevating other people’s stories right at best you you’ll get Amazing Stories from

18:35everybody and they’ll feel more connected and honored some of the qu so one of the big questions that we get um

18:41from an ethical Point what do I do if the people I serve have sensitive stories that they might not want to

18:47share it’s a very difficult question that a lot of people experience um all the time 58% said in the survey that we

18:55we did um said that they struggle with wanting to collect stories from their Community while actually doing no harm

19:00and it’s actually become even harder right like the the social media is insatiable and it’s demand for content

19:07and it’s very easy to fall into a trap of making that very transactional a lot of Foundations are wanting more video um

19:15they want in their reports and so again you don’t want to make that a transactional process you want to think

19:21about it in a framework that’s ethical and we um you know Carly did a great job putting together an ethical story

19:27timeing report that includes a lot of this stuff but it’s just at a high level um when we engaged our community about

19:33the keys to ethical storytelling and some thought leaders number one give your community the microphone um with

19:40today’s technology you don’t need to speak for others Elevate them capture their video let them be the let let them

19:45be the speaker to speak for themselves uh number two Empower your community to share when they’re comfortable right if

19:51you drag someone in your to your uh you know office and put a bunch of cameras and make up on them you know that that

19:58increases stress if you’re trying to get somebody to to give you a report oh shoot we have got a grant report due

20:04next week we need a video real quick well that’s not very ethical either right that’s why you want to collect

20:10these things all year around and you want to build that trust uh be upfront about how you intend to use stories

20:16right a Storyteller might be willing or less willing to share based on how if it’s going to go on Instagram or if it’s

20:21going to go directly and only to a a uh a donor organization or a foundation um

20:27another thing capture stories in real time like I said at the event or right after the event don’t ask people six

20:34months later about a program because they’re not going to remember and they’re not they’re going to feel kind of embarrassed that they can’t tell a

20:40great story about it so really be be be be dynamic about it always be collecting

20:46um and finally use strength based messaging and there’s a lot of great thought leadership about this about how

20:51to do that but these stories live forever right if somebody tells an embarrassing story and that story lives

20:57on Instagram it’s there like like forever and you want to be thoughtful of that so Elevate them with strength based

21:03language um instead of deficit deficit based you know poverty porn as they like

21:08to call it because if you’re doing you know if things work out they won’t be at that food bank forever they won’t be at

21:14a a client and maybe there’ll be a volunteer at some point and their story is going to change so be thoughtful of that um really really really sending

21:21yourself on those five things so that’s that’s all I have for today so um please

21:27please take a look at this freeownload this ethical storytelling report that Carly put together is tremendous if you

21:33haven’t read it already um it goes in ethical storytelling trauma informed language stereotype stories everything

21:39that you could want when it comes to crafting stories ethically and uh yeah

21:44so with that I think uh Carly I’ll hand it back to you thank

21:51you wow thanks so much for all of that and now I would yeah I mean I’m so happy

21:56that you got to go talk about all those strategies today and now I’m going to go

22:02ahead and add Josh back to our stream here hello Josh hi how’s it going Carly

22:08really great and Chris we’re gonna say goodbye to you for now so we’ll see you later all right um You got my screen

22:16here too I I got it are you ready to go yeah thanks Carly and Chris that that was really that was really interesting

22:23and now all I can think about is that like you know from the kids perspective if you ask how was uh or what what you

22:30do in school isn’t the standard answer supposed to be uh nothing but now now you framed it in a totally different way

22:36but I think that’s a good analogy because um uh you know the you know the

22:43questions that you ask are really important for the stories that you’re looking for and there’s also like tons of stories that are out there that you

22:49didn’t necessarily ask for but it fits the story that you want to tell really well so what I want to talk about is how you can take all those great stories

22:56that you’re collecting um from various programs um you know whether you see

23:03them on social media or you’re proactively collecting them and put them together to take all those assets and

23:09tell the stories in really deliberate ways today I’m going to focus on reports um so my name’s Josh cigman I’m the CEO

23:15and co-founder at story raay and we help nonprofits with a solution to create digital reports so that’s annual reports

23:23and impact reports um donor reports and we’re also going to focus today on solicit a reports with the idea of um

23:32taking sometimes during a case for giving and asking for funds right through report and I’m going to go

23:37through best practices of how you take the storytelling that Chris was talking about and present it in a report so that

23:44your donors and stakeholders can see it and why that’s important um we also focus at story raise on personalized

23:51reports using Automation and part of that storytelling is about customizing the stories for different donors based

23:58on on their giving level or their interest level so we work with all types of nonprofits around um uh North America

24:05primarily across different vertical and industries and um some of the best practices and examples we’ll show you

24:12today come from come from some of our our story raise customers so I want to

24:17start with what makes a great report and this is really through the lens of Storytelling so it’s a really nice um

24:24next step in the in the chain from what Chris was talking about terms of collecting stories and focusing on video

24:31and now I want you to think about how you would go and present that so I think being really visual is the first thing

24:37and that ties to being engaging think about the reports that you put out today it could be an annual report or or

24:44different um even smaller quarterly reports you put out throughout the year and it could be to donors it could be to

24:50volunteers it could be to a board you could think about the other marketing that your marketing and comms or your

24:56fundraising colleagues are putting out as well and think about how engaging that is probably is for the stakeholders

25:02that you’re sending out to and um you know I think that in the past when

25:08reports were primarily PDFs or flip books it was um it was commonplace to

25:17make the presentation feel like 75% texts and 25%

25:22photos and Design Elements Design Elements excuse me but now there’s an opportunity I think to create more

25:29visuals and be more engaging that includes more um assets and that way

25:34you’re going a little bit further to try to ensure that your stakeholders are actually reading these impact stories

25:40that you’re telling them and participating in them um and then there’s metrics you can you can use to track so what we’ll get to in just a few

25:48minutes is what those assets are and how they can kind of become tactics within your storytelling to be more Visual and

25:55not just focus just on the copy or just on a combination of 75% copy

26:0025% um uh photos also ensuring that your content’s unique to your brand we’re all

26:07very busy throughout the day I mean while I’m talking right now someone’s getting a text someone’s doorbell is ringing uh there’s a lot of competition

26:14for just time let alone what other organizations are doing that are also asking for money or for time or some

26:20sort of participation so when you have that opportunity to to get that five

26:26minutes with uh a constituent or um a potential donor

26:32or volunteer that’s going to read a report you’re creating think about the content that’s in there that speaks to

26:38something that’s um that’s relevant to your brand and only only you can do and

26:43make sure they know who it’s coming from it’s very obvious to to you as the um

26:49you as the fundraiser or the marketer that that’s coming from um your brand

26:55and in your voice and you may be very familiar with that program or that event that you’re talking about but the person

27:02that’s reading it may not you really got to drive that home over and over and tie that back to um you know a a voice that

27:09can only come from your your organization also a great report is uh a

27:15little more scannable and not necessarily text text text text text text text think about the attention span

27:23that Chris was talking about think about what um websites look like when you’re teach a lot of different things for

27:29instance you may have a program and you’re telling a story about um how the

27:35community or the constituents were affected in such a such a positive way and we could have only done that without

27:42W with your participation so thank you you know thank you donor I think there’s a couple ways you could tell that um you

27:48could tell that story there’s a short format and a long format there’s a lot of background and a lot of detail that

27:53could be there but maybe it doesn’t all have to go it depends on the type of report a grant report be different but maybe it doesn’t have to go in a in a

28:00more high level an annual or impact report you could tease it and then always have a hyperlink at the end of

28:06that tease that goes to your website that has a Blog that has the full article but if there’s a little less to

28:13read and and the page feels a little more web friendly like a website I think you have a greater opportunity to engage

28:20donors um longer and we did a survey as well that showed that um over 90% of the

28:26donors want to know what the stories of impact are uh before they give more and

28:32they’re much more likely to give when that happens so do all you can to keep their attention and keep them reading as

28:38much of your reports as you can making it scannable as one of those tips also being selective and just think about

28:44just having one key story to try to get their attention to um everything doesn’t need to be kind of dumped in there be

28:51really selective with what you’re doing and you know that’s a a tough job I’ve I’ve done that personally but I think

28:58between the user generated content and the the stories you’re kind of seeking out there you can find the one that’s

29:03going to that’s going to speak to your um your brand the closest and um not

29:09rushing through it is a big part of it too so taking a look and editing it yeah but getting a second set a third set of

29:14eyes on these stories especially with reports is really helpful so I mentioned digital reports and digital reports are

29:22really unique because in my mind it’s moving towards something more interactive and it’s living in a

29:29web-based format so it’s moving out of a a PDF or a flip book which of course is

29:35digital but something into something that’s web- based that lives at a URL that you can easily access from a tablet

29:41or a cell phone and we’re certainly seeing more of a trend um towards that

29:47which is a lot of the demand as to why we we we started this company story

29:52raise in 2019 so as we’re thinking about digital reports across annual reports

29:58and impact reports we’re thinking about enhancing the uh the the reader

30:03experience through interactive elements so that’s thinking about how you incorporate um video and a few other

30:10ideas and we’re going to get to that I’m going to show you examples of that too and delivering a report that’s also

30:15feeling really polished um I think there’s enough technology out there where you don’t have to be a graphic

30:21designer you don’t have to know code to Showcase that impact in the format that we’re talking about to be able to create

30:28that more engaging experience I mean really when it comes down to it it’s about the I think the art of the

30:33storytelling the science of it is just finding the right templates and Technology to do it really quickly so you don’t have to spend as much time as

30:39you used to doing that um when it comes to visual storytelling um some of these ideas like

30:47video that I just mentioned and Chris talked about for a while helps build better connections too feels more

30:53personalized feels more engaging um there’s a way that social media posts

30:59that you already have today could be a part of that and I’m gonna get to that as well and there’s also the idea of

31:05standing out from the competition I talked about the competition of your donor’s time there’s also the competition coming from other nonprofits

31:12and think about what they might be putting out in terms of their reports you could have something that really Wows customers with the right

31:19storytelling um so I just want to talk about that for a second because the right the right storytelling I think

31:24comes down to to putting the perspective in the hands of the constituents or the

31:30beneficiaries of the resources that you’re giving and um my co-founder Jeff

31:36rum likes to talk about a great example about a playground coming into a community and say you’re nonprofit raise

31:43funds through a um uh through a variety of efforts for a program that could put

31:48a new playground in the community there’s option A which is to tell the

31:53story to all your donors that there’s a playground here everyone’s thriving we

31:58couldn’t have done it without you you show a picture of the playground and that and that’s that’s good right but

32:04there’s an option b which we think is great which is this idea of highlighting

32:09specific people that are benefiting from that playground or a specific part of the community that’s benefiting from

32:14that playground and thinking about how um now little Johnny and little Susie

32:23have somewhere to go um to go interact with other kids and developed their

32:28social emotional um skills and they’re really

32:33thriving in this playground and we couldn’t have done it without you it takes things down to a more personal level there’s a lot of great um speeches

32:41over time that we often talk about one stands out of my mind actually from um um o Oprah Winfrey thinking about you

32:48know moments that she was um you know kind of affected by story she heard when

32:54she was a kid that kind of shaped her life and what she wanted to do and how she wants to go and tell stories and

33:00they’re more captivating and it’s more captivating or interesting I should say for your audience to listen to um and I

33:07think that’s about you know showcasing um uh quality um keeps the donors

33:12engaged and um certainly moves away from just static static reports that um don’t

33:21don’t have as many of those elements there thinking about people that are on the go is also really important and

33:26having reports be mobile responsive so you’re telling a story I think going back to the video idea is a great one can people see that

33:35video that you’re watching easily from their cell phone as it’s as it’s part of um uh a report and I keep saying report

33:42this could be a newsletter that you’re creating so um you know it could be um

33:48it could be any other marketing or communication piece that’s going out uh through a variety of channels just think

33:54about the vehicle that you’re using to get get those stories out to um the

34:00donors and how they’re how they’re receiving them and and how legible responsive it is um and I want to show a

34:09few screenshots here and then some real life examples of nonprofits that are doing a good job I think um showing the

34:16story a and not just relying just on telling the story with text so there’s a

34:22timeline on the screen this one comes from World’s um Wildlife Federation they did a great job talking about how they

34:28were helping to um save tigers around the world and um they had a focus on um

34:36tigers in uh in India and in Nepal and Bangladesh and they wanted to tell that with a map I saw another great example

34:43come out of the Harvard uh Center for African studies where they they have an interactive map in one of their annual

34:49reports and when you click on the map they’re showcasing where uh their alumni

34:55live throughout the continent of Africa and they’re all alumni from Harvard and

35:01they want to they want to show that and you have to click on the different countries where you see the dots and you can play around with it so that’s

35:06telling a story right there in both of these cases from WWF or Harvard they could have just written a simple article

35:13about it but they’re trying to find a unique way to be able to really show it and come to life instead of just tell

35:20it um I think that um making it align with your brand that I talked about

35:25earlier is really important I think that comes down to using the right colors using the fonts that you usually have

35:32and the layouts that you use in your other fundraising and marketing assets so part of that consistency and brand

35:38continuity within storytelling um is often uh is often

35:44paid attention to by organizations that have multiple members on a marketing or a coms team but it doesn’t have to be

35:51the case I just think that taking a step back and looking at one piece that you do versus another piece P versus social

35:59media versus a newsletter that you have events that you have in person do they all have that um similar look and feel

36:06in terms of representing your brand or is it a does it look like a different brand everywhere you look because over

36:11time that consistency um delivers familiarity with people that haven’t gived yet or might

36:18increase their gift and that ties to them being really aware of your brand and really understanding what you’re

36:24you’re doing if they’re not necessarily a long time or highle Giver yet but you can turn them into that with um thinking

36:32about your brand that’s just a piece of the puzzle uh we talked about video before I

36:38just want to share an example of what that kind of looks like with storytelling um here from a a a customer

36:44that we worked with when they were kind of pairing it with kind of a quote could be a testimonial and just a little bit

36:50of text so I mentioned social media before as another as another way that you can

36:56take assets that you already have out there and then integrate that into your

37:02storytelling um there could be social media stories that are based on uh

37:07events that you had in the past or the launch of a program or the success of a program that you’re then talking about

37:13in a report and if you’re telling a story about how program XYZ or event XYZ was successful you have text you have a

37:20picture from there maybe you have a video embedding a social media post uh

37:26is another thing that you can could do to help tell that story it’s a little interactive so if you look at the one on the right on your screen you could tell

37:32that’s taken from Twitter or X right so that’s embedded as part of the story

37:38it’s a different way for a donor um to uh engage with the the overall story

37:44that you’re telling a different way to visually present it for them to read it it keeps it more interesting it keeps them reading longer and it just feels

37:51more um Dynamic we’re seeing more and more of that and I think it also helps

37:57because you don’t have to sit around and think all right well um how much do I need to write on this topic for this next impact report or how am I going to

38:05fill how am I going to fill the page up um it delivers this web-friendly short

38:11format content um for you in a really interesting creative kind of

38:16layout photos are interesting too and I have no problems or issues with AI

38:22photos stock photography but where you can use authentic photos that you have especially when you’re

38:28talking about uh pictures of uh people and their faces um as Chris mentioned

38:35before I think the um the ethics around it are important so whenever they’re involving kids um you know make sure

38:42that you know you have the right permissions in general waivers are a good idea um but including those photos in in

38:51reports of real people it’s great they’ll see them but other people that are like them will see them and they can kind of see themselves and similar

38:57events and they’ll relate to it um relate to it a lot more I think that this brand went a little further I mean

39:03yeah you have the pictures of people but I mean it looks like they have pictures of a receipt there uh on the top left

39:10and they’re showing you know the fundraising goals and action they said we did it um and showing what their goal

39:17was so um photos could be any kind kind of Graphics even simple um uh executions

39:25like this or simple or simple infograph um when we talk about great stories like

39:34we have been the display of them um also is nice when um when complemented with

39:42showing the people that you’re talking about so we talked about showing rough faces um here’s how this brand I think

39:48this was a school in the Baltimore area yeah the McDonald school did a great job of that is they’re H they’re

39:53highlighting alumni or people from the community um doesn’t necessarily go on and on with uh just text but also it’s

40:00not just a picture and a photo so it’s a matter of striking a nice balance between the two which is part of the um

40:06the art of it so we said we talk about um uh solicitation reports there’s these

40:12moments throughout uh the year when you’re creating different type of reports where sometimes you’re there to

40:17say thank you here’s the impact you made those are annual reports and most impact

40:23reports there’s sometimes throughout the year when you want to think about the times where where you’re making a case for giving and you want to ask for

40:29contributions so uh I just want to share a couple examples here um of reports

40:36that we’ve seen it story raas from customers this one coming from an organization called um star Commonwealth

40:43where uh at the end of the report they have kind of have this thank you section at the end and they’re asking for a

40:50donation so they do a great job of putting a hyperlink in there where you can go and then then donate so here’s

40:58another example from another customer called Lloyd Ecco district and um I

41:04think this one’s really great you know they’re saying thank you they’ve making a case for giving throughout uh

41:09throughout the entire report as they talk about their different milestones and all the people involved Etc and then

41:15there’s a call to action here for a button to make a contribution so again it’s just when you’re ready to make a

41:20case for giving so I think end of year and giving Tuesday are good nice examples of that it could be a call to

41:25action to sign up for a golf tournament or to buy tickets for a Gallow or a race or something like that um I think the

41:32the the trend that we’ve seen is that there’s enough of this where um solicitation reports and even pitch

41:38decks have come to a point where there’s really an opportunity to um create less

41:43clicks for the donor so here’s an example that was created by um uh a

41:49partner of ours that’s a um actually a CRM called give butter where they made a mock report and they’re showing uh you

41:57know the impact leading up to it right and they did a nice job it represents their brand and then there’s a place to

42:03donate a call to action at the end so they’ve you’ve told your story and now you’re saying as part of that story and

42:09we need your help so there’s ways that you could take your

42:15existing uh donor forms right where the credit card swip’s going to happen and

42:20have no extra clicks leaving the website and have your donors donate right to you so that either saying to you you did

42:28such a great job expressing that story that now I’m going to donate right within your website and then also the

42:34benefit is you’re not losing them with extra clicks and they get lost on your website or another website where you’re sending them where they would donate

42:41there it all happens right here so um I think that solicitation has um a time and a place but is really important and

42:49there’s times throughout the year where you might be doing that anyway I think looking at examples from other organizations that have been doing it

42:56well uh are are really beneficial so Carly I

43:02know we want to save time for a little more conversation and Q&A so I’m G to turn it turn it right back to

43:10you wow thank you so much I love all the examples that makes it like so you can

43:15really understand like exactly how you can Implement these things that makes it so easy um awesome well yeah I’m happy

43:23to be back I have so many questions for you but actually I also need to bring Chris back so let me get him added back

43:29here hello oh Chris did you fall asleep while you were no you’re good he’s good he’s

43:35here oh he’s muted maybe he lost his voice sorry baby brain going on I was up

43:43all night yeah okay well wow okay so thank

43:48you both so much for presenting um both of your expertise today I do have some

43:53questions I’m going to try to do some rapid fire so let’s do some rapid fire questions rapid fire answers sound good

44:00yeah that’s all right my first question is for Chris and uh the question is what

44:07types of content are most compelling or applicable for nonprofits to

44:12share well for me and I’m a little biased obviously because it’s my obsession in life but I just love

44:18Community generated stories like Community generated content o otherwise

44:24called user generated content which I think is a gross gross gross comment to talk about your

44:30you know constituents and your uh your your donors as users but um but that’s what it is right that’s that’s the what

44:36they called on the for-profit side so yeah Community generated content Rich authentic Community generated

44:43content yeah that totally makes sense so you have your you showed the example of the program participant like the family

44:50that was at the program but um do you think there’s ever in a time where somebody else might have a good story to

44:57share yeah yeah I I like talking about that because people always think well we need to collect you know let’s say

45:03you’re a food bank right and you want to collect content from people who come to your food bank for services that can be

45:09difficult you know and and they may not feel comfortable telling their story and you want to be thoughtful of that and

45:15not be pushy but you can tell other stories your volunteers are a great

45:20source of stories everybody loves hearing volunteers and and to be honest volun most volunteers that I know a lot

45:26of them like talking and so they they uh usually that’s a good match um and

45:31sometimes they’ve been and been previous users of the services and um so that can

45:37add a nice little wrinkle of somebody who’s come through the program um but certainly your donors your board members

45:44um employees people want to see the window into your mission I think I think that’s I think that’s true and it’s also

45:51it’s also really hard I mean my when I was at a a nonprofit that I was at for a little over 10 years like my first job

45:57when I walked in the door was to start um sourcing and interviewing people that

46:04were being you know affected positively by the programs and the brand and then

46:10we’d interview them and then write a story about it right and then um chase him down and ask for a photo that had to

46:16do with the story write a blog about it and then can’t remember but I imagine like the social media team probably then

46:23created posts about it right and you’re and then and then you think at you know when the time is right like uh you know

46:29oh well which ones do we want to make videos of and go back and interview them and then other programs that were really similar and and just the leg work behind

46:36it hard so I appreciate a way to put it together like really easily like like

46:41you have a memory Fox because um uh I I remember spending a lot of time on it a

46:47lot of time yeah and then you know and then it makes it easy you just pull it into a uh you know a platform like story

46:53Rays or or whatever and and then now you can create like the best stuff on the

46:59planet yeah now you got a beautiful report that has actual video and pictures like oh man yeah I thought we

47:05were moving fast when I was doing this years ago but none of these tools were around so it’s different now I mean it still

47:11takes process and the time to think like all right is this a good story and some of the leg work but like Technology’s

47:16Advanced so much especially with AI which we didn’t even really touch on yet right um that can help so yeah it would

47:24be funny to kind of look back at those old procedures and think like oh how long did that used to take and now how

47:30little time can it take in comparison that’s um that’s an interesting thing to think about for sure yeah all right I

47:37love it I’ve got another question Josh coming at you for this one this one is

47:43what are some common mistakes that you’ve seen nonprofits make when it comes to building reports oh well the first thing I do

47:52when I see a report is think about it from um like the recipient or most cases the

47:59donor’s perspective and I open it up on my cell phone and I look to see if it’s

48:05really easy to read through and navigate and the biggest uh issue I usually find

48:13is when the report is in a PDF format like you know I mean during my workday I use PDFs a lot right I mean sign

48:21contracts with PDF just think of all the ways where you use PDF it’s great but when there’s a lot of stories that you

48:27want to read on a PDF it’s hard to navigate on a phone and I have like you

48:34know like the biggest iPhone screen I think that you can have the size of my face right so that’s fine I still to

48:40pinch and zoom and move all around because it’s not responsive meaning like I have to slide everything over to the right to see the stuff on the right and

48:47Slide the stuff on the left am I doing this right on the screen to see the stuff on the left and um it’s a weird uh

48:55motion I think I have to take um or especially if it’s a flip book I don’t like unless if that’s mobile

49:01responsive which is basically uploaded into flipbook mode that’s kind of hard too so um yeah we have a solution for

49:09that at at story Ray but in terms of the mistake I think not thinking about it from the donor’s perspective with what

49:14they’re going to see at the end of the day just because that’s yeah create just like a way to improve it is to consider

49:21you know making sure that when you are editing or when you’re creating your report you know put it in a smaller

49:26window window if you just put it in a little window like this you can see what it’s going to look like on your phone right so you know you can just see how

49:32that works yeah the the other thing I see is I’ll answer give you a second answer and that’s U ma Mass printing um

49:39you know there’s not a lot of that left but there’s still plenty of it and I say Mass because there’s always that one board member that one segment of donors

49:45that wants to hold in their hand and that’s important that’s great and everyone is still doing that and should

49:51be um I don’t see the trend going that way long term but that’s that’s how it is but with Mass printing I think that

49:58most of the most of the nonprofits I talked to are doing that because they’ve been used to doing it um without testing

50:05the idea of of digital I’m not saying that’s a mistake I think that’s just part of the Natural Evolution where

50:10we’ll see less and less of that happening um but it’s always good to

50:15test new things and find new ways to engage donors just because we did it years ago doesn’t mean it’s the answer for today or tomorrow well there’s like

50:231.3 million nonprofits or 1.5 and if they all at a 30 page uh report for all

50:30of their donors I think we’d be uh running out of trees pretty quickly so that’s a good thing we could do it

50:36digitally right right that’s a good point yeah especially if you’re

50:42nonprofit has some sort of sustainability arm to it it you know you have to make those considerations too

50:48when you’re thinking about printing stuff right yeah we work with a number of environmental nonprofits that you

50:53know like they want to be digital because they’re they’re just looking to cut down on printing overall so you’re

51:01right great well I can’t believe that we’re already so close to the end of our

51:06time together today but I do have one more question this is for both of you so

51:11um I’ll let Chris answer it first but um and I think you guys already touched on this a little bit but what are some

51:18tools that somebody can use if they’re just not techsavvy like what you know they need maybe a little extra help and

51:24they’re just um not super great with technology maybe that’s to build reports

51:29maybe that’s to take videos Beyond any advice for our less techsavvy

51:34friends well I’ll go first because I guess the the Journey of content starts with me and then ends with you is um so

51:43I don’t I don’t ever want to undersell just using a Google drive if you’re an organization that that you should should

51:49all you probably do have like a Google drive or a Dropbox setup the difficulty is not in that it’s it’s creating sop

51:57like a standard oper standard operating procedure for how content will be organized and handled on the Shar Drive

52:04I think we’ve all been part of organizations you’d be surprised even in the Army too where like we have a folder

52:09for all of our pictures and videos and stuff and it was a complete NS even for very organized people you’d think in the

52:16Army and so I can only imagine what we’re all dealing with today and so but having a Google Drive setup with clear

52:24rules for how everything gets organized and catalog um that that’ll be a big

52:30help that’ll be a big help obviously memory Fox does that automatically that’s why we built it but like

52:35certainly you can do this yourself um and I I definitely would recommend even

52:40trying it first um I think after you have all the

52:47um all the imagery and videos that you’re thinking about for um a story I

52:53would encourage people just to kind of try out um uh story raay which you could do at

52:58story ra.com um we have a trial everything’s drag and drop no code so to

53:04answer Carly’s question about technical knowledge you don’t need any and there’s templates to help get you going so it’s

53:10a nice way to put the presentation together and follow those best practices um and get something new and

53:16different out to your donors oh that sounds yeah that sounds great I love that yeah well I you know I

53:25have so many more questions I’m sure everybody here that’s watching today has so many questions please do um reach out

53:31to us we’ll be sending you some follow-up emails so you can connect with us um but if you are interested in

53:36learning more about memory fox or story Rays please stay on for a few more minutes we’re going to give you just a

53:41deep dot of really quick not a deep dive we’re gonna give you a really quick overview of both products so I’d love it

53:47if you’d stay on and Chris what do you say you want to tell us a little bit more about memory Fox yeah let me get

53:52know real quick obviously we’re very proud of what we built I actually originally built buil it as a way to interview predementia elderly to be able

53:59to get their life stories and um along the way we worked with the naval Park

54:04here in Buffalo we’re up in Buffalo New York and uh they used it to collect

54:09stories from veterans and I was like oh that’s a really great idea for a fundraising campaign and uh it’s s of

54:15one of those I don’t go into it but it’s kind of the rest this history kind of thing is they had a challenge collecting videos from from Veterans for a

54:23fundraising campaign so I I could talk about storytelling all day but um you know you’ve all heard it a million times

54:29right especially if you’re on the marketing side and fundraising we need more impact content we need more stories

54:35we need more testimonials it’s always more right it’s like a NeverEnding exhausting task for nonprofits to try to

54:42like compete in this attention economy where big corporations have become very good at attracting eyeballs away from

54:49you and getting dollars away from you into their products by making people feel good about buying their products so

54:55like that’s we’re obsessed with Community generated content that’s your special power and so our platform makes

55:01it a breeze to collect that content and stories from your community um

55:06regardless of their comfort with technology we want to make it ethical right not just stories from people who

55:11are good at technology take all that content organize it in the cloud and then design that content and give you

55:19kind of cool ways to design it and share it with the world so integrating with things like story Rise canva um which is

55:26more on the presentation side Less on the reporting side um all kinds of cool

55:31stuff right um but it’s like an end to-end workflow and the idea is to make it your entire the entire content

55:36Journey um so one of the cool things is that we are obsessed with the ethics of

55:42Storytelling I kind of talked about that earlier so we’ve built all these unique ways that you can track collect and

55:48track consent and we’re building all all kinds of new ways to do it as we learn

55:53because I know that that’s a very difficult thing and it’s a big barrier to sharing content ethically um even the

55:59act of letting people record stories on their own in the comfort of their own home is is an ethical act and letting

56:06them do it on their time and respecting that they’re not you know they’re not George Lucas crafting this amazing story

56:13right they’re just a regular person going through regular life and their story deserves to be elevated and told

56:18as well um so one the thing that’s cool that we do with pricing is it’s all based on your 990 so it’s flexible to

56:25the side your organization so don’t worry too much about that we’ll work with you to craft a price that’s that

56:32works um and just a little bit about you know I think I talked about some of these you know re Across America have

56:38been doing some amazing work Manchester University um collecting stories from um

56:44from members of their Community students and and alumni and things like that and then we build built a really cool quick

56:50and dirty way that they can turn those uh videos and pictures into small pres

56:55very small small simple one-pager presentations that are kind of like the very very basic version of what Josh has

57:02built um so but obviously once we once we once we connect with them you’ll be

57:07able to build some really amazing stuff out of them so yeah that’s kind of like a once over for memory Fox obviously if

57:13you have any questions um feel free to hit me up or on LinkedIn or whatever if you just want to chat about storytelling

57:19or startups anything at all thanks Chris okay let’s see Josh I’d love to

57:27hear more about story raise yeah thanks Carly and Chris um so as I mentioned earlier story raise is a solution for

57:34nonprofits to create digital reports and campaigns so our core product is all

57:39about creating digital reports um in a few days possibly even today we’ll be

57:46launching something called story raise magic for nonprofits to create fully biged social media campaigns with the

57:53help of AI and were just really about that connection between storytelling and

57:59fundraising using technology as um as the bridge so when

58:05you’re building reports um in the platform it kind of looks like this where everything really is drag and drop

58:12so that you can quickly create impact stories and all the great things we’ve been talking about that include video

58:18and social media um in in this kind of Realm of solicitation reports that I was

58:24showing you earlier um you know we do have an R adding integration so that you

58:31could take your existing donor management platform or your existing donor um donor payment forms and have

58:39them appear like I showed you in that one example um right within the report you can be using any any processor for

58:46that and bring it right into right into story array so we’d be happy to show you

58:51how and um would look forward to talking to anyone on this call today about how this to work for your nonprofit can’t

58:57wait till somebody can just drag memory Fox content into your platform we’ll get

59:03there we gotta get there it’s gonna be good well thank you both so much for

59:10sharing some more thank you both for again for presenting joining me today thank you all for coming to watch us

59:16today this is our May me memory Fox webinar so I’m uh you know it’s the beginning of May and we have some other

59:23events that are coming up later in May so head to our website check those out um but thank you all for joining us for our first LinkedIn live this has been

59:30really a such a pleasure for me this has been very fun worked really great and I

59:36look forward to seeing you all again and Josh look forward to uh presenting with you again in the future yes same here

59:42thank you all bye everybody bye thanks