How to Build Donor Relationships Through Storytelling

Fundraising is about so much more than dollars and cents. As Lauren Wright, a generosity strategist and former nonprofit communicator, shared, storytelling and relationships are at the heart of inspiring donors to give.

Lauren reflected on her time at the nonprofit Water for Good, which provides access to clean water in the Central African Republic. A pivotal part of their fundraising centered around storytelling to translate the life and needs of those they served across the vast ocean divide. They specifically told stories from the perspective of one child, baby Sandra. By personalizing the story, donors started to feel connected to Sandra, her family, and her village. Her story was shared across campaigns, email, social media, and more to reinforce this relationship. People came to really know and care about baby Sandra!

The power of this approach rests in fostering a relational dynamic between the nonprofit and its donors. Rather than treating people solely as dollar signs to fund programs, intentional cultivation recognizes donors as whole people. Much like the in-person interactions Jesus modeled through storytelling, virtual "come and see" moments on social media can create meaningful interactions. Comment conversations allow people to engage rather than passively observe.

While the impulse may be to focus on transactions for the instant gratification, resist compromising relationship-building to scale up donor numbers. Any influx of new supporters requires careful follow-up and nurturing. Listen to donors, invite feedback, and treat them as valued partners, not just funding sources.

If you want to enhance your nonprofit's capacity for inspired and inspiring generosity, connect with Lauren. She loves networking and comes alongside organizations to develop comprehensive, thoughtful strategies. Building personal connectionsamplifies impact!

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Transcription

00:00:04
            

Well, hey there, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Holy Donuts podcast. I'm your host, Matt Lombardi. This episode is sponsored by our friends at we give. If you are looking for the best donor experience on the planet, you gotta check out we give.com.        

00:00:17
            

Tell them that we sent you from the Holy Donors podcast. We'd be grateful that you did. But today I am joined, really excited by this, by Lauren Wright. Lauren is a generosity strategist with generous. Previously the communications director at Water for good.        

00:00:33
            

And so, Lauren, thanks so much for taking the time to join me today. Yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah. So to start, why don't you give our audience a little bit of an overview on your background and tell us a little bit more about how you got into this world of generosity strategy, but also nonprofit communication. Yeah.        

00:00:53
            

So I have kind of always been involved in journalism and mass communication and studied that in college, but also wrestled with this calling from God into ministry. And what do those two things look like together? And at the time, I didn't really know what that looked like, but come to find out, there's a whole field of faith based marketers and communicators that you can make a career in. And so I ended up in a church for almost a decade, serving in the executive leadership in a communications marketing type role, as well as doing some stewardship, and then moved into a faith based nonprofit and have been there about five years, and now making kind of a transition into consulting. So a little bit of everything.        

00:01:38
            

Yes. Yeah, yeah. I've seen it from all angles. Right. So the church side, the nonprofit side, now kind of outside the consulting side of it, getting a full picture of the entire industry, which is always helpful.        

00:01:49
            

So because you see the whole picture when you kind of look out and you're looking at your experience, whether that's with the nonprofit, with church, is there a campaign, a strategy, a tool, an idea, something that has stood out to you in your career that you think is really beneficial, that a lot of nonprofits should really be considering? Yeah, I think one of the things that I have reflected on recently and just been really, really sure that it was important or a monumental part of our fundraising was our storytelling aspect at water for good. All of our work is done overseas. And so it's few to know donors that actually get to see, smell, taste, you know, experience the life of Central Africans. And so you have a huge challenge, literally an ocean divide, to translate this into ways that donors can really experience and understand.        

00:02:50
            

And I think storytelling is just like, it's the heart. It's the heart of what Jesus did. You know, he went around and he's telling stories, and people are engaging with his mission, and that's what organizations do. And so making it so that we could tell those stories in an impactful way where people want to connect with the mission and vision of water for good. And so we had to really figure it out.        

00:03:13
            

It's a very complex environment, but we started telling stories from one child's perspective, from one person. And our donors started to know those individuals, like baby Sandra. And people knew baby Sandra because we talked about baby Sandra and the life, what her life would look like without clean water. And we were able to come back a year later and do a campaign for her first birthday to raise money for others in her community. And so it's just making that storytelling and that donation become very relational, so that you're connecting with someone, something, and knowing that your donation, your money, your tithes, offerings, whatever it is, is really going to make an impact, a kingdom and impact.        

00:04:05
            

Yeah. So I'm hearing a little bit of, like, a framework, right, that you all have, which is, hey, we actually want the story, which is so. Such a, like, unique angle, right? Like, you hear a lot about, oh, we'll tell the stories of the people who were serving. We don't actually hear this, like, oh, we're going to tell it through the lens of one individual's experience with our ministry.        

00:04:26
            

How did you all come to that as a kind of core concept or framework for how you told stories? I think it really started to originate when I traveled and I got to know these people, and I sat with baby Sandra's mom. I sat in the little hut with Pastor Walker and heard their stories. And I thought, if I'm so moved sitting here, I think other people will be, too. And we took those stories back and created videos.        

00:04:49
            

We created entire campaigns. And although it might seem like, hey, we'll get some campaign fatigue just hearing one person's story over and over, we recycled that content and used it in a lot of different formats, social, email, marketing, print, video. And then, you know, throughout, it might be in grants, it might be, you know, in follow up letters, thank you notes, whatever it is, they continue to hear about those names. And those names are, like, now the face of water for good. These people that when they think water for good, there's not thinking nothing.        

00:05:26
            

You know, you don't have a picture, but now you have a picture. Like, I know what baby Sandra looks like. I know what Pastor Walker looks like. And so I think it was a little bit of like, we stumbled upon it and then it was a little bit of like, here's what moves us as people connected to the organization. And we started to really see that impact in connecting not just individuals, but churches and organizations.        

00:05:49
            

Just really, hey, we love that Pastor Walker video, and we want to hear more about Pastor Walker. So that's so cool. I love that. Well, hey there, holy donuts. Listeners.        

00:05:59
            

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00:06:08
            

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00:06:31
            

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00:06:54
            

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00:07:02
            

So when you look out now in your new role as a strategist, right. You'll be working with a lot of organizations. What's the trend that you kind of see in christian nonprofits that's got you really excited, and what's one that's got you a little bit concerned? Yeah. Well, we can start with the bad news, but I mean, I think the big thing that our whole society is so instantaneous and everything's just now, now.        

00:07:25
            

And the minute we start boiling or watering down our fundraising efforts, when we start trying to replace things that are relational with very transactional things, I think we lose a lot of value. Donors can go anywhere and have a transaction. You can drive through the drive through. You know, you can get online. You don't even have to, you can just pick up your phone.        

00:07:51
            

But to have that relationship is actually really hard now. And so you have to work and you have to pick up the phone. You may have to, you know, do some visits. You may have to really connect with people. And so I think just really taking the time to build those relationships with your donors, with your people that you're marketing to.        

00:08:10
            

It can be, you know, it could be even like, focus groups or different, you know, just hearing from other people. But I think our donors, you know, always will really appreciate any time we take time for them. Because while it might be easy in our chair to just see people as dollar signs, they're not, they're, you know, entire beings. And we don't want to minimize that, that effort and those, those people are the reasons our organizations exist. And so just not taking that lightly, I think just not thinking, hey, we can throw up a social media ad, we can run this campaign and get 100 new donors.        

00:08:53
            

And, you know, that's great because we now need to nurture, we need to have a follow up plan for those donors. We need to be ready to prepare them and to cultivate them and to properly think and appreciate, too. I just think that there's, like a whole plan that goes in place when you want to put something. And I think I see a lot of organizations just jumping, too, will throw a lot of money at social media or Google Ad buying or these things that are awesome tools when used with a properly built out framework. But when you just throw it at them and yeah, you might get some five dollar donations or some new email names in your database, but to be ready to really receive, cultivate, and, you know, expand, you know, expand them into potential bigger donors or champions of your.        

00:09:44
            

Cause, yeah, it's, we talk about all the time with, like, you know, with nonprofits is like, if you treat people like a number, they will eventually return the favor. Right? Like, fine, then eventually when their budget gets tight or when they have to make a decision because saying, oh, well, supporting, like, you know, ten different ministries right now, you're going to just become a dollar sign to them because you treated them like a dollar sign, and they're going to say, well, okay, well, you're the one to go because, like, it's just another, you know, $50 a month I'm spending on the spend. That, right. So it is about building those relationships and letting donors know that, like, they matter to the mission, they matter to the vision, and reminding them that, hey, it's not just a transactional thing.        

00:10:23
            

So I love that. On the more positive side, what are you seeing that has you a little bit more hopeful for nonprofits? I absolutely think social media, on the flip side, is an incredible tool. I just think it more than ever, especially small nonprofits, can spread their reach really easily. I mean, there's just so much excitement there's so much room.        

00:10:45
            

I love seeing some of the viral challenges actually go viral because I think those things, free social media, it was a lot harder to get your name out there. It was a lot of, you know, word of mouth or different marketing efforts that were hard to like. Now we're, we're globalized. We're not just localized to our small community that our nonprofit was founded in. And so I think, you know, it has its own challenges, but it also has so much opportunity when properly leveraged.        

00:11:16
            

And there's so many great tools out there that you can use to track and, you know, make sure that you are being a great steward with those resources. Absolutely. No, that's great. Social media is, as much as it's a buzzword, it still somehow is like underused by ministries. Like, oh, we put stuff out, but it's like the actual strategy of, no, really dedicating someone who understands the platform deeply, who understands how to leverage it and how to interact and how to engage with people.        

00:11:52
            

That's, I don't know about you, but one of my things, like, it's one thing to throw out a post, but like, the real magic of social media happens in the comments. Like, that's where, like, you're actually going to interact with people. That's where it gets social. It's not social if you're just throwing out a post and someone passively is hitting a like button or you're like, oh, we got 5000 impressions on that. But it didn't actually lead to any conversations.        

00:12:14
            

That's not social. That's just a monologue from your organization. So, yeah, somehow, as much as a big deal, it's still underutilized in its proper formats. Yeah. And I think when you see it as like, because I think the beauty of social media is it's come and see, right?        

00:12:31
            

And anytime you can get people to be hands on with your ministry, mission church, people are automatically, they have a deeper connection. And so it's this come and see model. And when you can use that properly, it's like a, it's like a mini mission trip or mission trip. You know, you make a post and now people are commenting. That's exactly what would have happened if you had taken a trip over to the Central African Republic or downtown to the women's shelter or whatever it is.        

00:12:59
            

People are interacting, people are talking, you're seeing, you're touching, you're feeling. And so as much as you can recreate that in storytelling on social media, I think, yeah, absolutely. That's why those comments are so essential. Yeah. And so what resources do you like to give out to friends, people in the industry, colleagues?        

00:13:20
            

Like, are there books? Are there magazines? Are there articles? What are some of the resources that you like to share most often? I think my current favorite is the nonprofit storytelling conference I attended last year.        

00:13:33
            

It's great. They have some various, you know, tracks that you can go through, depending on if you want to concentrate more on social media or just different facets. But I think storytelling and marketing is such a unique thing for nonprofits. You can definitely learn a ton from the for profit industry, but then there's some unique quirks that we all have to live with within the church and nonprofit sector. And so it's a.        

00:14:02
            

It was a really refreshing time to go be in a convention center with a lot of other people who sit in your chair in different organizations. And I'm a huge fan of networking. I just think I learned so much from other organizations, and so I, right now, that's my. My go to. I really enjoyed attending and being a part of it.        

00:14:23
            

Yeah, I mean, there's. There's such a missed opportunity when it's like, you know, listen, books, podcasts are all great. You can learn a ton. But when of you get to have lunch with someone who's in the same chair as you, maybe an organization a little bit bigger, maybe the same size, maybe smaller, but they've done something that you've not done before and be able to just sit there for 30 minutes. Like, okay, but, yeah, you guys did that way.        

00:14:44
            

But, like, okay, how'd you get your data clean to, like, get this campaign to actually. Right. Or, like, how'd you. Okay, like, yeah, we're in this CRM, but, like, we've been trying to get our emails to sync up right with it. Like, how'd you guys do that?        

00:14:55
            

Like, just those really tactical what sometimes seem like to us in our spotlight, dumb questions. Like, having someone that you can trust, that you can just say, hey, what'd you guys do? And then what you find out usually is like, oh, well, we're having a problem with that, too. It's just a complete pain, right? And you're like, okay, like, now I feel better.        

00:15:12
            

And there's no amount of, like, podcast or article or book can really help with those sort of conversations. There's so much of our day to day work when we're working in nonprofit, so I love it. I love events that we all need to feel a little bit, like, normal or, like, you know, like, hey, we're doing the best we can with the resources we got. And sometimes that's really limited in nonprofit or church work. So that's for sure.        

00:15:38
            

That's for sure. So, okay, Lauren, if folks want to connect with you, if they want to figure out a way to, whether that's figure out what you're doing with this consulting strategy for generosity, like they say, hey, you know, that sounds actually something we could use. Or if they just want to connect with you and say, say, hey, ask a question, what's the best way for them to reach you? Absolutely. Like I said, I love networking.        

00:15:57
            

So happy to talk. Whether it's just to make more connections or, you know, if you need some help along the way, I'm on LinkedIn, so you can look up Lauren Wright, or you can also email me Lauren dot wrightenaris.com. So either way, very cool. Well, Lauren, thank you so much for taking the time today. Thanks for being so generous with your knowledge.        

00:16:19
            

Really appreciate you coming on the show. Of course. Thanks for having me.        

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