Welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the podfather of your favorite hebdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d be thrown into dextrogastria if you upset my stomach with the idea that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer, Kate, to tell us what’s going on this week. Hey, Tony, I’ll be happy to. Storytelling. Sarah Wood reminds us of the value in telling good stories to your stakeholders. Also, how do you tell them? Where do you tell them? Which ones are worth telling, and what’s the right engagement or call to action? We pull some lessons from her children’s favorite stories, the Narwhal and Jelly series and dandelion magic. She graciously shares her own story of solo motherhood by choice. Sarah’s company is Sarah Wood Communication. On Tony’s take 2. Thank the folks who nobody thanks. We’re sponsored by Donor Box. Outdated donation forms blocking your supporters’ generosity. Donor box, fast, flexible, and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit, DonorBox.org. Here is storytelling. It’s a pleasure to welcome Sarah Wood. She is the founder and chief communication consultant at Sara Wood Communication LLC. A lifelong voracious reader, Sarah has been helping individuals and organizations identify and effectively share the stories of their good work for her entire professional career, and she still loves a good story. We’re gonna talk all about stories and storytelling. You’ll find Sarah on LinkedIn and her company is at Sarah with an H Wood communication. Dot com. Sara Woodcommunication.com. Sarah Wood, welcome to nonprofit Radio. Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here today. Oh, I’m glad, pleasure. Storytelling. You’ve been doing this for a long time. Why, uh, why are, why are we still talking about storytelling? We’ve been talking about storytelling for years now. What, what brings this, what makes this so timely for us? Well, storytelling has become the the term, right, that we’re using now, uh, and people are very into, you know, they talk about storytelling, they talk about narrative, they talk about all that. In reality we’ve been doing this. The entire human existence, right? Uh, I mean, you can go back to caveman days, um, before we even had a written language. People were telling stories, sitting around the campfire, telling stories, uh, and that was how they were teaching people. It was how they were remembering things. It was how they were communicating with each other. Um, and so in some ways, nothing has changed, right? Uh, we still know that there’s a lot of research out there that shows that’s one of the best ways for humans to pass on information. It’s what we do with small children, right? We read to them, we tell them stories. If they’re getting ready to do something new, we talk about like, oh, here’s a children’s book for it, that’s gonna help them kind of like understand and process and go through it. And the same is true for adults, and we still love a story, even those of us who don’t get to read that often. I used to be a voracious reader. I still have that in my bio, but I’ve got two small kids and, you know, a business and everything else, and so I don’t read as much as I would like to anymore. You’re reading. I am. I’ve read so many of them. You’re a voracious reader of children’s stories. What age are your children? Um, they’re 2 and 6. Oh, the 22 year old, do you? I don’t have children. Do you read the 2 year olds or is that too early? You you when they’re like newborns. It’s a it’s a good thing I don’t grow up illiterate because I wouldn’t know I wouldn’t know. Hopefully somebody would have told me. Uh, OK, so you start at, uh, at birth or, you know, we’re hearing our whole lives, right? Whether they’re books, whether it’s radio, whether it’s television, whether it’s, you know, just some story that your parent made up to help you go to sleep at night, you know, we’re telling stories the entire time and we’re listening and we’re learning and that’s how. We learn about humans and we feel connected to each other. So we’ve been, we’ve been doing it the entire time, but there’s a rise of interest in it as far as nonprofits go recently. All right, but before we get to nonprofits, so give a shout out to your six year old’s favorite book. That’s a tough one. You know, he really likes the, um, trying to think of the name of it, Narwhal and Jelly series. It’s a kind of comic graphic novel type thing, and the main characters are a narwhal and a jellyfish. Um, and so there’s all these different titles in the series, and, and he really loves those. OK. So there are, so they may they may be sympathetic or maybe they’re in need of a title or. To, to, to broaden their own voracious reading children’s books. Yeah, and I mean the good thing, good thing they’re they’re kind of out of the, I want to read the exact same thing like over and over and over again. My 2 year old, you know, we’re definitely like, we can read the same book like 10 times in a row and she’s still fascinated. have a favorite? Uh, she likes it. It’s right here next to me. It’s called Dandelion Magic, and she likes it because it instructs you to like blow on the magic dandelion. So, you know, she gets to like, and, and blow, um, and make magic things happens. It’s an engaging. There’s some, there’s some engagement that we may talk about, uh, hopefully we’ll be talking about donor engagement with their stories. So she likes the act of blowing on blowing on the dandelion. Yes, she does, she does. She’s a big fan of that. All right, so we can pivot back to the less interesting but maybe more relevant nonprofit storytelling. All right. Well, some of the same things apply, right? You still want to make it interesting and ideally you’re making it interactive in some sort of way. Um, you know, a son and daughter, you know. Uh, what about feedback or or volunteer feedback or just whoever readers reader feedback on our stories? How do we get feedback? How do we know which is the favorite stories? Well, it depends on how you’re presenting the stories, what stats you have available, right? Different platforms are gonna have different ways for you to measure kind of what’s happening, who, who’s interacting with it and, and who’s not. Um, I mean, you also have kind of Behind the scenes ways of doing that, you know, you can kind of set up some separate URLs or landing pages, you know, so that you can kind of track specific interests of like, you know, who’s coming from this place and who’s coming from that place. Um, so it really kind of depends on what your setup is and kind of how you’re presenting your story. OK, if you’re, if you’re presenting it to a list and if you’re, I guess if your list is big enough, uh, you could test, you could test different stories, right? If you, if you have a large enough list to have a valid test or a simple AB test of different stories, OK. All right, I’m making you jump around, but, uh, I, I know, I wanted to launch off the uh the children’s children’s reading because that’s what you’re a voracious reader of children’s stories. So, yes. Well, and you know, I mean, some, some storytelling does happen in person, right? So if you’re at an in-person event, if you’re at an event for your donors or an event with uh potential donors, right, you can kind of catch up on all the cues, right, of are they interested or not, you know, you’ve got the nonverbals then. Um, but you know, it really depends on kind of how you’re presenting it. That’s, that’s a very interesting ones on that thread a little bit. The in storytelling, like having your cache of, uh, I don’t know, one program or, you know, whatever, you know, you’ve got some stories in mind that when people say, you know, oh I love your Uh, the hospice work you do really moves me, you know, then maybe you’ve got a hospice story or it’s the, uh, you know, it’s the fact that you’re a no-kill shelter. Oh, that really, now I’ve pivoted now. Now that’s not a human no-kill shelter. That’s an animal I’ve pivoted from human to human uh hospice, although you get a pet hospice too, but I wasn’t thinking of that. So we’re not talking about animal urine you’re a no kill shelter. I love that, you know, that aspect because you’re the only one in our state that’s a no-kill shelter or something like that, so. You know, so yeah, I mean I I never thought of in storytelling. Yeah, I always encourage anyone. I mean this is any organization doesn’t have to do with what industry you’re in, but you have to have your elevator speech down first, right? What is your organization? What’s the main thing that you do? Why should people care? You know, you need that kind of one minute spiel, right? Um, that you can give to anyone. And I always tell people, listen, don’t just get your executive director who’s able to do that. Every single. Employee in your organization should be able to give a one minute elevator speech about your organization, what it is, what it does, and why it’s important. Uh, if not, you’re just missing so many potential opportunities because think about how many more people every single staff person of yours interacts with on a daily basis than just, you know, your executive or your C-suite or or what have you. You know, you really wanna make sure that everyone’s on the same page. Um, so that’s one. But also, yes, absolutely, you should have like your back pocket full of like. Pack full stories. I mean, people want to do business with people. We know that there are companies, we know there’s organizations, but the more we can humanize and personalize those and we can put a face to what we’re doing and why it’s important, the more successful a nonprofit’s gonna be. I mean, it’s, it really lays the foundation for anything that you might want to ask those people later, right? Because if you just come up to someone and you say, hey, give me some money to do X, they’re gonna be like. Why? You know, like, what, what impact is this gonna have? Like, and people love other people, right? So, I mean, and it is not, even if your nonprofit doesn’t work with people, like you were just saying, like, the, the dogs, right? Or the no-kill shelter, you know, the dogs or the cats. We wanna like personalize and humanize the dogs and the cats, so that people feel close to them. They feel connected. The more connected someone feels, the more likely they are to. Invest in your organization and in your mission. Right. Now, how about uh disseminating these stories to, let’s say board members or volunteers it could be, could be non board member volunteers, you know, they’re, they’re great spokespeople because they, they devote time. They give several hours a week or whatever, you know, time, time is great value, especially now, time and attention. So. So volunteers could be great storytellers and as well as your board, but how would you, how do you pass these stories on to them? Like, so let’s take, um, let’s take the harder case first, like volunteers. So these folks are spending maybe 45, I don’t know, 10 hours a week or something. How would you arm them with stories about your work? I think volunteers are going to have their own stories, so it’s more about helping them share them in a way that is helpful to the organization they’re gonna share what their work is right, they’re gonna talk about their personal experiences, um, and, and their personal interactions or or and you know what they get out of it and what they feel like they’re doing. Um, so like I said, it’s more about helping them learn how to share that in a way that is effective, um, and that helps the organization overall. So how do you, how do you help them effectively? I think you have to arm them with the facts, right? You want them not just to have their personal experience, but to give them the the bigger picture, right? of how does their personal experience fit in with the bigger picture. I think if they have a particular thing that they want to talk about and they let you know that, I think that you can provide them with the background. Yeah, I mean, if you’re a big enough organization, you can even do media training for your volunteers, um. And you can pitch them as speakers as kind of ambassadors and out into the community, uh, that does take, you know, some, uh, staff effort on the, on, on the inside, but I think take advantage of the opportunities, you know, if you have a volunteer, particularly if you have a volunteer that is very well connected in the community, make sure that they have the information that you want them to have. And if they want to take that opportunity to kind of like practice what it is they want to say, give them that opportunity. OK. All right. And uh board members, that’s a little easier. I mean you could, you could write some story, you could write some anecdotes, you could share, have people come and tell their own personal story at board meetings, right? How important your work is not to the community, but to me, me, my family, my child, me personally, my spouse, whatever, right? And board members and the same thing with volunteers like that are already there if they’re already there. They’re already kind of committed, right? They already know about your organization. They are, they’ve already drank the Kool-Aid to, you know, throw an adage in there, um, you know, they’re, they’re already on board with what you’re doing. You don’t have to convince them. It’s not a hard sell, right? It’s just about showcasing the impact that you are having and nonprofits do so many good things and if they don’t talk about them. They’re just kind of lost, right? I mean you might impact a few people, a handful of people that directly know what happened, right? But if you can’t share those stories and amplify them and put them out into the world, you’re gonna hit a plateau for your organization where you’re not able to get the volunteers or to get the donations or to expand the programming or bring people in that that you could help, right? Because they don’t know about you, they don’t know about what’s happening so the more you can tell your stories, the more you can put it out into the. World, the better off your organization is gonna be because you’re gonna be able to have this foundation of support you’re gonna have this relationship with your audiences because you’ve been consistently telling them what you’re doing so that way when you ask them for money or you come out with big news, they’re already primed to listen to what you have to say because they’ve already decided, OK, this is a valid source and this is a source that is doing important things and so I’m gonna pay attention when they are saying something to me. Right, get good folks out. Um, let’s get folks out storytelling and finish, finish my thought. Um. Yeah, don’t overlook your ambassadors. Any, you know, anyone who is willing to be an ambassador for you and to talk you up, you know, give them the tools to do that. It’s time for a break. Imagine a fundraising partner that not only helps you raise more money, but also supports you in retaining your donors. A partner that helps you raise funds both online and on location so you can grow your impact faster. That’s Donor Box, a comprehensive suite of tools, services and resources that gives fundraisers just like you a custom solution to tackle your unique challenges, helping you achieve the growth and sustainability your organization needs, helping you help others. Visit donorbox.org to learn more. Now back to storytelling. How about engagement? We, we, we, we talked about uh your daughter’s engagement with the dandelion, dandelion story. She loves to blow on the little on the dandelion pages, I guess you can blow on the pages. Yes, OK. Like they can’t still be dandelion seeds. There’s nothing really blowing. It’s not a dandelion, it sounds like she’s so many times. I mean she does really blow and of course, you know, like you know it is not a slot like dandelions in the book. OK. What’s the name of the book. And magic magic, OK. So let’s let’s continue there. So what about engagement with your stories? Is there, is there a parallel for for nonprofits, folks engaging not so much, yeah, not so much the metrics, but the engagement. The old mode of communication was much more one way communication, right? It was kind of we say it. You hear it, and there wasn’t really an an ability to interact, certainly not in real time, right? I mean, you could conceivably like write a letter and mail it, you know, and, and all those kind of things. Um, but there wasn’t really the ability to interact in real time that we have now, right? And so now we have much more ability to get instant responses or instant reactions, and we can do, we can even do live things, right? Um, and we can get them like right away. Um, so I think. Things that your audience is interested in and that they want to interact with are very important because you don’t want it, you don’t want people to feel like they’re being lectured to, right? You want them to feel like part of the community, part of the conversation. And part of the way you do that is just having interest interesting content, right? But and humanizing it and personalizing it and all the other things that we’ve talked about, um, because that makes people feel more involved. But other ways you do it is, you know, you ask them questions, you give them ways to get involved. You don’t just kind of like put it there. And then drop off the face of the earth, like, um, what do they want to see? You know, what does this make them feel like? Are they going to take action? Here’s the actions we’d like you to take. Would you do any of these things? Like, I think all that kind of engagement is, is important, and It depends on where your audience is, how you’re going to interact with them the most, you know, maybe, maybe your main audience is on email, maybe it’s on social media, maybe it is these in-person events, maybe you do a lot of local in-person meet and greet type things. I mean, it, it really is gonna depend on. The organization and the specific people that they are trying to reach. Um, but yeah, you, I mean, you have to be engaging. I mean, I think we’ve, there are so many people trying to catch your attention. That you have to be engaging or. You’re you’re forgetful, right? I’m not forgetful, you’re forgotten, um. And it’s, it’s hard to catch people’s attention. I, you’re forgotten or you’re forgettable. Yes, yes. And you know, I feel like there was that old adage that You know, you have to hear things 3 times before you would take an action. And I was like, well, that’s very outdated, right? You have to hear things way more than 3 times now. I was on a webinar the other day and someone dropped it, it’s now 25 times. And I was like, well, they didn’t actually cite that. So I don’t know if that’s research based, but it kind of feels true, right? It feels like it, it passes the smell test, right? Because there is just so much information out there and we’re bombarded with it, like all the time. So it’s an and everyone can sell their story now, right? That’s the main thing that’s different about storytelling in the past versus storytelling today. The storytelling in the past was, you know, you kind of had a few people who were able to tell the stories and able to get that out and it was like your major national television networks, you know, your radio channels, that kind of thing, and now everybody has a platform, right? authors, journalists, yes, yes, there was kind of like gatekeepers, right? There were people you had to go through and now everybody can tell their story. It’s really been democratized, you know, we can all tell our story. It’s a what’s important now is being able to choose the stories and determine how to present them in the ways that best reach and resonate with your audience. And another thing that’s come to light is not a lot of, I won’t say just nonprofits, a lot of organizations in general. I feel like back in the 90s we’re doing this a lot and it was kind of the um poverty porn, um for lack of a better term, stories, right? Where you were putting these kind of sob stories of these people that were in this terrible situation and you know, the organization came in and they really like changed their lives, right? And, and up and did it. And, and that may very well have been true. um. But I think there’s more of a recognition today of the importance of telling stories ethically, right? And part of that ethical storytelling is really making sure that telling the story benefits everyone involved, you know, and that we’re not taking advantage of someone who we were able to help in order to kind of. You know, make ourselves look better or to to get more for that, right? We have to be very careful about how we tell these stories, particularly, you know, when people are involved, um, not exploiting a situation or, you know, a tragedy. Exactly and making them aware kind of of the the potential repercussions of sharing their story that maybe they haven’t thought through um because particularly, you know, you might have someone, you know, maybe they’re maybe they’re young and you know they haven’t necessarily thought through that they can tell the story and they can literally follow them their entire lives, right? Um, because of the internet, because of social media, because of the ability to like find information now in, in ways that were not present, you know, in past, in past areas. Um, so I think just making sure that you’re telling the story in a way that benefits everyone, and that might involve, you know, being anonymous, it might involve, you know, changing the way that you’re doing it. It certainly involves making sure that you have The appropriate releases, you know, to, to tell the story and making sure that you’re kind of educating people who may be, who are doing you a solid, right? We’re doing you a solid by sharing the story of how your organization impacted them, that, that they’re actually getting something out of it as well, and that they’re not gonna get negative repercussions from doing so. Let’s talk about what makes a good story, uh, a good ethical story, of course, and uh I wanna use the uh the Norwhal and jellyfish example. What, what do you think makes that a good story? For your, for your son, is that why is that you said it’s a, yeah, what is it what is it about the uh the Norfish that we can, we can extrapolate for good storytelling nonprofits? Well, one, it’s very visual, right? It, it is a graphic novels. I don’t even know. I don’t know if there’s a length to be called a graphic novel because they’re not super long, but I’m going to say they’re graphic novels. OK. Children’s graphic children’s novel. Right. And like most children’s books, right? Most children’s books are super visual. So I think, um, you know, you have to catch people’s attention, you know, and it’s not always visual, but you have to think about what is it that’s gonna catch and keep people’s attention. So that’s not only the story itself, right? So it’s the actual storyline and that being interesting and these particular books have a lot of comedy, right? They’re, they’re funny and they’re cute, um, and there’s a lot of puns. He’s very into word puns, um. So, you know, there’s the things that make the content itself engaging, so the words themselves are engaging. Also the visuals, right? It it’s very visually engaging, there’s lots of pictures for him to look at, um. In his case, there’s not a huge amount of words per page, that’s important when you’re 6, right? Because you’re you’re kind of done with it and you’re ready to move on. But aren’t we supposed to do we supposed to do like we’re like grass grade or something? I, ideally, yes, I mean. You don’t know everyone’s education level, right? And particularly depending on your audience, you know, or if it English as their first language or anything along those lines, right? So, um, you need to keep it easy for that, but also people don’t want to work that hard, right? Um, don’t make people work for it. Make it easy for them to do what it is that you want them to do, you know, and if that’s be invested in your organization in whichever way, if it’s volunteering, if it’s donating, if it’s doing whatever. Make it easy for them to do it, and don’t make them work hard to understand the story and what you’re saying. There’s a lot of industries that jargon is very common, and they tend to throw around acronyms or terms that make a lot of sense to the people involved, you know, like inside baseball, if you will, right? Um, but don’t mean anything to the general audience, and I think that’s one thing we have to try to catch. It’s like, you know, you aren’t speaking to yourself, you aren’t speaking to someone who has the same background and the same details and the same information that you do, uh, and you need to recognize that and you need to use a conversational manner and you need to use language that people are familiar with and that doesn’t mean. You know, you don’t co-opt, you know, you don’t need to kind of co-opt something and be someone who you are not. Still be who your organization is and have that consistent voice. But, you know, you don’t need to speak at like PhD level. I’m writing a dissertation style way to, you know, Joe from down the block, right? Uh, you need to speak in a way that your audience reacts well to and that they understand. You reminded me of, uh, when I was in law school, first year of law school. I hate, I, I, I, I hated practicing law, by the way. I don’t do it anymore, but I was very glad that I went to law school. I still am very glad I went, but your first year of law school, uh, now I went in, uh, 1989, so you, you’d be reading cases and I had literally my dictionary. My Black’s Law Dictionary by my side because every, you know, every paragraph there’s a word I don’t understand. There’s, you know, Latin phrase or something, you know, you don’t, you don’t want need people to be going, going to an online dictionary to get, you know, you don’t need to show off your extraordinarily literate vocabulary in your professional. Storytelling. Keep that to your friends. Because we, we kind of train people to do one thing in school and then you need another thing in real life, right? So in school, we kind of train people over time. You write longer, you use bigger words, you, you know, you do this, this, this, and so you start off, you know, I mean, my kid is in kindergarten, right? He’s writing like I saw. Sue run, you know, like that’s what he’s working on writing, you know, and then by the time you know you’re in college or you’re in grad school or law school or whatever it is, you know, you’re writing these long papers, right? You’re writing a dissertation, you know, and you use the, the big words and use the academic language and you use the insider terms because you have to do, you have to, that’s what you’re trained to do. That’s right. And then once you get out into like the real world. And I was like, I haven’t written anything that’s more than like 4 pages and I don’t even know how long, right? Because nobody wants to read all that. Like people want it short, succinct, like get to the point, what’s the summary, you know, if, if we do write something along, we always have that one page executive summary in the front, right? Because a lot of people are just like they don’t have the time for it and they don’t have the interest and their capability they don’t, you know, they’re not that invested in it that they’re gonna spend all this time. Digging through to find the gem that they need, right? They really need, they need some bullet points. They needed an executive summary. They need a story that they can remember and that sticks with them and makes sense, you know. And I mean, sure, you could do, I mean, when we talk about storytelling, there’s so many formats, right? I mean, you could really do a really long term, you could write, you could write a book, you could do a long term. Documentary, you know, those type of things. But most of the time when we’re talking about storytelling in this context, we’re talking about, you know, short hits, right? We’re talking about things that are, you know, like under 3 minute video, you know, that you can read in less than 10 minutes, a podcast, right, that you can listen to in a half hour. I mean, we’re really talking about shorter, more succinct, getting to the point. Stories. So you have to kind of like capture someone’s interest from the beginning, and keep it. I mean, the good thing is, I feel like that that is easier to do in a shorter time frame, right? But you have to get to the point faster. You don’t have a lot of runway to kind of meander around the point. I hope there’s still a place for longer form podcasting because we run like 45 minutes to an hour. But uh the good thing about podcasts to podcasts, people are frequently multitasking, you know, so I feel like you get a little more leeway for. Yeah, I hope. You know, I hope they’re not, I hope they’re not doing crossword puzzles or sudoku while they’re listening to Tony Martin and nonprofit radio because then you’re not gonna get the, you’re not gonna get the, the genius of Sarah Wood and other guests if you’re, if you’re too engaged in you’re multitask. So, you know, let’s dumb down the other, the, uh, the, the other part of the, the other tasks while you’re listening to. Nonprofit, you know, if you digest of the impressive. I bet there’s somebody out there who’s done it. I hope so. Oh, if there is, I’d love to know. Well listens to it. That’s what we should do a picture of your nonprofit and you can be a star. I’ll I’ll listener of the pages. Um, let’s talk, you know, the narwhal and the jellyfish. What’s the relationship between those two? Let’s talk about relationships. They are. OK. OK, BFF. It’s time for Tony’s Take 2. Thank you, Kate. The people who nobody thanks, you know, they kind of. silently breathe by us, and they are ignored by most people. I am encouraging you to give a simple thank you, a simple, have a good day. You know, it costs nothing, it’s, it’s, it’s a second. Um, and I’ve been trying to be conscious of this in my own. Mostly, mostly in traveling, uh, so, you know, I’m thinking about. Airport bathroom attendants. They’re keeping these bathrooms clean and like I said, they just come silently in and out, nobody gives them any mind. Say a quick thank you. That’s it. Just, thanks. They’ll get it, they’ll get it. Um, in hotels where you, when you get the, the free breakfasts, now this is not the breakfast that’s served to you, but, you know, I’m thinking of like the, uh, I use Marriott a lot. So like Fairfield, Resident Inn, Spring Hill Suites, you know, they have the free breakfasts, uh little tiny buffets. The folks that put that food out for you, thank you for breakfast. I, I, they’re so grateful to be thanked. Um, flight attendants, you know, flight, I, I, flight attendants, um, they come around and they offer you something and Lots of people don’t even remove their headsets or their AirPods, whatever, earbud, whatever, you know, whatever you got in your ear. And then, and then, and then you, you gotta ask the person, what did you say again, you know, you see them coming like remove the device from your ears so they don’t have to repeat themselves and then, and even some people don’t even give them the courtesy of that, they just They just kind of guess what’s being said, you know, you can usually tell if the court is there with, with the beverages, obviously, you know, it’s time for beverages and snacks, so they, they don’t really even hear and give the person the courtesy of Being listened to. Because they won’t, you know, the passengers won’t remove their devices. So you have a little courtesy, like pause your music or your movie and and actually listen to the person, hear them. Another one, restaurant, um, in restaurants now I think servers are, you know, waitresses, waiters, they’re, they’re generally thanked, I think. What about the people who fill your water in your coffee? They come around sometimes, it’s not the server that you’re, that you’re tipping. And we ignore them, you know, I see this when I see it with friends, I see it with donor lunches, but nobody says thank you for the, for the coffee refill or the water refill. A simple thank you, you know, like the arm is extended in, you know, and it’s just, it’s like it’s not even a person, it’s just an arm reaching in with a pitcher of water. These are people, say thanks and then carry on your conversation. It’s, it’s just that simple. Um, and also in restaurants, uh, the bus staff, people take your plates away. You know, again, it’s an arm, a couple of arms reach in and and and disappearing. They’re not disembodied. These are people. Thank you. Thanks for taking my plate. So, I’m being more conscious of this. Uh, I’m encouraging you to be. Maybe there are folks in your lives who come in and out and, you know, we’re treating them almost like they’re not human, like they don’t even exist, but they do. But you know, so it’s, it’s it’s uh, it’s not very thoughtful, it’s not at all generous to. They giving to to people who. You don’t have to say anything to, but I, I, I think we should. That’s Tony’s take too. Kate, I’m just gonna add a few to the list from my own life, um, Boston guards, we live near a school and you know they’re out there. Uh, making sure our kids are safe. Now, give them a very good one, right, and especially now, freezing out there for an hour or so. Crossing guards, excellent. Wait, you got others. And then also I was thinking shuttle staff, whether that’s like your buses, your trains, that also kind of has to do with your flight attendants, but the people transporting you to and from, give them a little wave. Yeah, yeah. My shuttle driver was actually really nice yesterday because I got off at the wrong stop, or I was going to get off at the wrong stop, but then I stayed on with her. She was like, you got off at the wrong stop, but you can stay with me and I’ll recircle. So she was really nice. See, they, they were people, yes, people are generally thoughtful and helpful and Uh, see, there, there was a very generous thing she did. So there you go, yeah, those are excellent, thank you. Excellent additions. Well, we’ve got Bou butt loads more time. Here’s the rest of Storytelling with Sarah Wood. Relationships, so, you know, how do we? How do we make sure these stories aren’t, you know, so complex? Like you’re, you’re, you were just talking about the length, you know, but. How do we make sure that we’re not including so much detail that the important things get buried? I mean, they’re in there, but they’re not coming out because we’ve got detail about the make another human story, you know, the person’s background or something we need to, we need to edit down, right? Absolutely, yeah, uh, I mean, I am a I always start with more than what I need, right? Um, because I’m like, I’m gonna have everything that I could possibly need when I’m, when I’m kind of crafting this and when I’m thinking about this. And also because I tend to be, even when I tell, even when I tell my stories, right? I, my personal stories, you know, I’m always putting too much information in too many details, and then sidetracking and be like, well, let me explain this part, you know, um, and so it really is, it really is the editing process, and you really do have to have a A standard process, I think for doing that. Um, and you can set that up in lots of different ways depending on your organization, but I think, you know, you can’t necessarily just have your first cut be a final product. Now, sometimes you can, sometimes you can catch some candid, you know, I mean, that’s become very popular now, right? Candid kind of just like impromptu, put your, put your phone up and, and grab a, a quick snippet of something. Um, so I’m not saying that you can’t do that, but I’m saying when you come to your more formal stories and the things you’re gonna be using for a longer period of time. That you’re gonna want us to kind of think that through, right? You might want to storyboard it out, um, you know, think about what your goals are going in, what are, what are the goals, what are the key topics that you want to hit, and then, you know, think further about how are you gonna do that, you know, what’s what best exemplifies what you were trying to share. You know, I mean, you also can, you can start from the story. You can have a great story, and then you can figure out how to use it. But I personally feel like it’s easier if you kind of start with your goals and then think through, OK, what kind of story best fits this? Who would be the best spokesperson, what is it that we want them to talk about? What are the key points that we want to get across. I think if you know that going in, it’s, it’s easier than kind of going back after the facts, um, and kind of shaping it, but it is possible to do it after the fact as well. All right, I’m gonna take a chance here because you said you, you, you tend to wander in your own storytelling, but you have something in your bio that’s very interesting that uh that you’re a single parent. So I’ve never seen that. chose to have children on their own. Um, so both of my children were conceived using donor sperm. Um, and they, they do not have a, a father in their life. Um, I have other family members, obviously, who kind of step up and friends and whoever and lots of loving people in their life. But, um, you know, I was a person who, I mean, this has something to do with communication, but I was a person who always I felt like my life would be unfulfilled without having children, and I did not feel that way about a relationship and or marriage or, or anything along those lines. Um, and so I opted to have them, you know, on my own and and raise them on my own. Um, and they are amazing little humans, and it was the best decision of my life because like they are the best thing I have, I have done, you know, I’ve created these amazing humans to kind of go out and make the world a better place. Um, and so that’s an, that’s an awesome experience. I mean, I was gonna say, I was gonna say, you know, I don’t try to talk people into doing things, right? But I will say if you are interested in in potentially doing it, I would advise you to explore it, right? And to look into your options because science is great. I, I work with a lot of health. Science nonprofits. And 11 of the reasons is I just like really think that there’s so many neat things that are happening now, right? That you couldn’t even potentially do years ago. I mean, I think the first, I think the first IVF baby was born around the time I was born. Um, so that’s give or take 40 years ago. Um, so it’s only potentially, I mean, my kids were not born through IVF. I used IUI, um, which is insider term, right? But because we have jargon jail on nonprofit, yes, but it doesn’t matter we’ll just say it’s less medically invasive. IUI IUI is interuterine insemination, um, and so it’s not as, uh, it’s not as technical. I didn’t have to have eggs frozen and retrieved and, and, and all of that. It just, you know, it’s kind of. They put some sperm on up there and right, right, yeah, yeah. And you double down on this now, so you have two children, 2 and 6. I do, I do. Yes. So one was one was not fulfilling your first, your son was not fulfilling enough. Well, I wouldn’t say it that way, right? I mean, if I had been unable to have another child, then yes, I would have been fulfilled with my son. But, uh, I had always wanted two children, and, um, I was at a spot where I could do that or try to do that. And Was able to be successful with that and so yeah, they. They’re awesome and I’m I’m like traditional spouse or partner is not a, I mean, I hope they would say I’m successful. I feel like I’m doing all right. I’m sure, yeah, we can’t yeah yeah yeah you know it’s interesting. I’ve never seen anyone that way as a Yeah, there’s a growing, there’s a growing community of us. There’s a growing community, you know, I think times are changing, right? And, and you can do things now that you couldn’t do in the past both with technology but also kind of being more socially accepted and you know, being a more tolerant society and. To, to families that are shaped differently and created differently. Um, and I think that’s an amazing thing. Um, I mean, you know, um, my sister is, um, married to a woman, and, uh, they obviously had to use sperm to, to have their child as well, use donor sperm, and, um, you know, they actually had to use a surrogate as well, uh, for health reasons. And so, you know, the. It’s just amazing that we get to have these children in our lives in these in these ways that, like I said, would not have been possible. You know, a couple decades ago, so in the adoption process, did, did you see any bias against a single parent? Well, I didn’t do adoption. I am saying? Oh no, no, I’m sorry. So in the, uh, yes, of course, of course. I’m sorry, that’s embarrassing. Um, but in so in the, in the, in the the process of being approved as a As a parent, whatever that requires, was, did you see any bias against being a single parent or we are in the fertility industry are are kind of well aware of, um, you know, kind of the single mom by choice, you know, it’s not, it’s not new to them. Uh, uh, they’re like they’re probably the in in the in group. I, you know, I will say, you know, it. You have to kind of be clear at like medical appointments and things like that, that you’re the only legal parent, you know, um, and all those kind of things, but I, I don’t think that’s really any different than Anyone who say had had, you know, a spouse pass away or, um, you know, otherwise was like not available in their life, um. But yeah, I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know what people are thinking in their head, but I will say that, you know, I haven’t felt bad about it and I haven’t had anyone like try actively try to make me feel bad about it. So I think that’s a plus, right? I mean, people might have their own thoughts, but if so, you know, if you don’t have anything nice to say, keep it to yourself, right? Yes, I was. I was wondering about like institutional bias or something, but it sounds like we’re past that. We’re we’re we’re past that. Well, I wouldn’t say that we are past that. I would say I have not personally experienced it or knowingly experienced it. Um, I think that, you know, it, I would not go so far to say that it does not exist. I mean, I think it certainly still exists and, uh, you know, probably maybe more dependent on, you know, the areas that you were in and your, and your localities and kind of, uh, their perspectives there, um. May play in a bigger part yeah. Um, so let’s let’s go back. Thank you for sharing the story. I thought that was a poignant part of your, right? Right. Well, you might say, well, I only third party, not my own, but it’s harder to tell, right? I mean, I think, you know, People tell stories all the time and I, it’s easy for me to look at someone else and think, OK, here’s the angle, here’s what makes you different, unique, here’s what we can kind of, you know, talk about, here’s what we can, you know, get some leverage, here’s, you know, all of that kind of thing. And when you try to apply it like to my own business, right? It’s, it’s much more complicated to do it with your own business and yourself, right? Because you, you kind of overthink it and. And impostor syndrome kind of pops up and, and also you kind of think like, oh, well, I can’t do it unless I’m really good at it, because, you know, I am in the field, like I feel like there, you know, there’s a benchmark that you kind of have to get over, right? You have to be like at least X is good about and really it’s not. Like you can try things out the same as anybody else and and do things in a different way, but it’s really getting out of your own way and getting out of your own head, um, and having enough mental energy left after you serve your clients to kind of apply the same principles to your own business. And you even you devolved into jargon in your own story. I did you spotted it. You did, you did self-identify too, but I, I would, I would have called you out because we do have jargon jail, but I didn’t, I didn’t need to. Um, so you, something you mentioned, uh. We we were earlier, uh, consistency, messaging consistency, like I think like tone of your stories, you, you know, you said the, uh, the narwhal and the jellyfish, like they have, there’s clearly a pattern. You, you expect the puns, etc. Let’s talk about the value and, and, and how you ensure consistency in, in nonprofit messaging. Yeah, I always tell people, you need to know who you are first, right? And you need to decide as an organization, this is who we are, this is what we do, and this is how we talk about it, um, because it’s gonna be confusing for your audience if your emails are written in one way in one tone, and then your website is a copy is in a completely different tone and your social media is in, in, in, you know, a third one, and just, you need to pick one which is realistic, which feels like it. Works for you, which feels honest, um, and also want a voice that resonates with your audiences, and then you need to stick with it, um, because you don’t want to have mismatch between what you’re saying in one place versus another. And also you need to. When we talk about consistency, it’s not just being the same but it’s consistency and kind of the cadence, right? It’s I we’re consistently telling our stories we’re consistently talking about what we’re doing we’re consistently, you know, emphasizing what are the most important parts for us. So it’s both how often you’re doing it, and it’s making sure that it’s kind of similar, that there’s a similar vein, right? Of course you’re gonna alter things depending on like what format you’re doing it in. If you’re writing a case study, it’s gonna be different than, you know, if you’re doing. And Instagram reel, right? Uh, you’re not gonna do those the same way. They’re not gonna exactly have the same vibe and the same language and and all of that because they’re very different styles for different audiences, but you want overall your voice to be consistent. Your key messages across the board should be consistent. Your values should be evident and consistent across wherever you happen to be. And then like I said, you know, telling people. You have to tell people over and over and over again what you do. It is really hard to overcommunicate with people as a nonprofit organization. I mean, you’re inside, you’re embedded in it, you’re you may be tired of talking about it, right? You may be like, oh, we’ve done this so many times or, or we’ve told this story and so many times in so many ways and and all of that, but the reality is, you know, you see every message your audience does not. They’re gonna miss a lot of the messages that you’re putting out. Yes, that’s a very good point. They’re not seeing every message that you send. Exactly. And they’re not seeing it kind of the way you are, right, where, you know, it shows up like, you know, back to back to back to back, right? All the message you might send, like, here’s, here’s all your emails in a row of what you’ve sent or here’s all your, like, you know, when you’re looking at the back end of it, they don’t see it like that, right? It’s, it’s all this other stuff in between, you know, that they’re seeing. So I, I try to tell people I I feel like. Nonprofit organizations in particular, they’re worried about like annoying people, right? They’re worried about, um, kind of irritating them and then, oh, they’re just gonna like, you know, unsubscribe or unfollow us or they’re not gonna wanna do this, that and whatever. And I was like, it is really hard to annoy someone so much that they’re gonna opt out unless you are really just spamming, right? And like you’re, but if you’re providing content that is of value, and you, I mean, they might. See 1 in 10 of the things you do, right? I mean, I, I don’t have the actual data on that, right? Like, you know, but they, they are certainly not gonna see every single message that you send out. And then if they do, great. I mean, and if they are seeing every single message and they come to you and they say, you’re sending too many. I’ve seen all of these or whatever, like, let’s figure out a way so that that that particular individual, you know, doesn’t maybe doesn’t get quite so much of it. But I mean, I think that’s, it’s hard to do and. That’s something that nonprofits kind of have to get out of their own way on, is they’re worried, like, oh, we’re gonna annoy them, they’re gonna unsubscribe. If, if they’re gonna unsubscribe because, you know, they got Or end of year email like fundraising ask, then they weren’t someone who should have been on your list in the first place, right? Because they aren’t someone who’s like regularly invested in your organization. If they’re gonna be, you know, I mean how many emails does Target send me? Like how much like I haven’t unsubscribed from them yet, you know, like, I mean, now, do I delete most of them without opening them? Yes. But I mean, I, most nonprofits are not saying anywhere near the volume, right? That, you know, a target or or someone along those lines is sending. That’s consistent with uh advice around boards and utilizing your board, being afraid that you’re asking your board to do too much. If, if that happens, they’ll they’ll let you know. But odds are you’re not asking them to do enough and they’re feeling like they’re, you know, kind of a lackluster board member because they’re, they’re not engaged enough with. hopefully the right kinds of tasks you know they don’t know what to do, right? I mean, I think, I think that’s common, right, is that, you know, when someone joins a board and they’re very, or a volunteer or or or however they’re joining, however they’re, you know, being involved with the organization, they want to help, but they don’t necessarily like know how to go about that or they don’t want to step on someone’s toes, you know. And, or kind of take over what someone else is doing. And so I think the more information that you can provide internally as well, right? Not just externally, um, about what is most helpful, like, you know, don’t just leave people hanging. Like, ask them for what you need. And I know it feels awkward. We all hate, like, you know, we all hate asking for things and, um, That’s why some people who are like, you know, major fundraisers who really are OK with it, get, get paid more, right? Um, but it can feel awkward until you get used to it, right? And once you do it, and you see like, OK, you see the reaction, you see that it is a positive reaction. You know, you’re not getting the negativity that you thought you were gonna get. Um, I think that it’s easier to do it the next time, right? And, and it becomes, it becomes routine, and it’s no longer hard for you to do. Don’t be afraid of your board members. Don’t be afraid of your, your volunteers, your donors, whether they’re your major donors or your audience in general, right? Don’t, don’t be afraid of them and don’t be afraid to talk to them and to ask them things and you know, you might get crickets, they might not respond back, but, um, give them the opportunity, you know, give them the opportunity to engage and and to connect with you and to communicate and to let you know what it is they’re most interested in. Um, and, and not hearing back doesn’t mean that they don’t like you, means that they, they’re time constrained and, you know, they didn’t, they didn’t read that particular ask or they didn’t, they didn’t have the time to respond to it or they just chose not to. You know, it doesn’t mean that they don’t like you when, when they start unsubscribing, that’s when they don’t like you. Yeah, so they don’t, don’t default to thinking negatively, right? You know, um, if no one responded, then it’s just as just as likely that they responded positively as they did negatively, right? Probably more likely because I think people are more likely to actually let you know if they have a negative reaction to something than if they have a positive reaction to something. Um, I mean, we see that in online reviews all the time, right? Uh, the people who leave the review a lot of times are the people who have like a really bad experience for whatever reason, um, because most people who have like an OK or positive, you know, experience are just kind of like going about with their day. What else do you want to talk about around storytelling that uh either I haven’t asked you or we didn’t go deep enough. What else is out there? What’s on your mind? What’s on your mind? We’ve covered a lot of, um. I think maybe talking a little bit about kind of like how you pick the stories. I mean, we touched on this a little bit about how You know, how it’s important to kind of go in knowing what you want to get out of it. Um, but you may, if you aren’t used to storytelling, you may kind of be looking at your organization. I’m like, well, I don’t have any stories to tell, and that is like. Oh, that’s, that’s definitely wrong. You shouldn’t be, you shouldn’t be in business if you don’t, if you can’t come up with half a dozen stories, like sort of off the top of your head. Well, I mean, let’s not say it like that because for some people, you know, they just haven’t learned how to see it in that way yet, right? It’s the, the stories are there. You have, maybe I was being harsh, but you have. You just have to identify them. All right, so help us, help us, help us do that. All right. So I think you, I think you’re gonna, like I said, you can start with your kind of the goals of like, you know, this is what I really would like to have a story talking about or this is what I would like to have a story that there’s an example of. Um, and having that in mind can kind of help you when you’re looking at it can kind of like frame it and kind of shape how you’re looking at what you’re doing. Um, so that’s one way to go about it. I think another way to go about it is, um, to kind of train yourself and your staff to think about things through the lens of a story, right? So, so many times we’ll have, uh, you know, people they’re like, Oh, I don’t have enough, I don’t have enough content for social media, or I don’t have this. And I was like, OK, well, What does your staff say? You know, what is your staff doing like day to day, you know, are you asking them like, OK, what is there we could take a picture of? What is there we could take a video of? Could we do a behind the scenes of like what their day is like, you know, um, when someone comes in, have you asked them like what to give a testimonial of some sort? Have you asked them for their feedback, you know, those are always That you can kind of gather things that can kind of turn into stories. Uh, I think, uh, I worked for an organization for a while and they had been around like 90 years, right? And they’ve been running these programs for like 90 years. And, you know, so in all that time, there’s so many people that had been involved with it, right? And we really had to kind of create a program where they were like reaching out to like alumni of this program, right? Um, and kind of talking to them and doing blogs, a blog series and, you know, using that to then spin off and repurpose into like other, other storytelling content, right? But they just hadn’t thought about it, right? Like no one had just sat and thought like, OK, well, we should reach out to, you know, it’s been this amount of time, like they’ve done all these like different things. Like, it’s not like they’re still in high school. This was particular program was aimed at like middle and high school kids, um, you know, and, and some of them were like famous. So, you know, it was a matter of just like letting people know to think about it in that way, you know, because the stories are there. That’s one of the reasons I really like working with nonprofit organizations is because there are so many good stories that are just like right there for the bank, right? It’s not like you’re having to like create it. Anything else that you want to share? I don’t want you to give uh give nonprofit radio listeners, you know, like short shrift, I would want to just encourage everyone that everyone can be a storyteller and that the and that everyone has a story, right? So when you’re looking at your organization, think about what stories would be most effective for you, um, and how you can share them in a way that will resonate with your audience the most. And that’s the way I think you can best approach it, because otherwise it can feel overwhelming, and you want it to feel approachable, and you want it to feel like something that you can accomplish. Sarah Wood Founder and chief communication consultant Sarah Wood Communication, you’ll find Sarah on LinkedIn. You’ll find her practice at Sarah with an H, Sara Woodcommunication.com. Thank you very much, Sarah. Thanks for sharing your own personal story as well as all the uh valuable advice on. Nonprofit storytelling. Thank you very much. I hope somebody goes out and tells a story because of this. Many folks will, I’m sure. Next week, your grant maker relationships. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you. Find it at Tony Martignetti.com. We’re sponsored by DonorBox, outdated donation forms blocking your supporters’ generosity. Donor box, fast, flexible, and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit, Donorbox.org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer Kate Martignetti. The show’s social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy, and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation, Scotty. Be with us next week for nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. Come out and be great.