What Does Development Storytelling Look Like?
Development communicators are constantly told to focus on storytelling. But what does that look like in practice?
Consider this piece the Stevens Institute of Technology asked me to write last fall.
At its core, this is a gift announcement. Historically, a gift announcement has gone something like this:
- Lead with the gift, the donor, and the amount.
- Follow with a quote or two from institutional leaders talking about how great the donor is and how wonderful the gift is.
- Proceed to talk in detail about how great the donor is.
- Maybe include a quote from a department chair or professor whose area will benefit from the gift.
This is a story you can put together quickly, and it's certainly gratifying for the donor. But beyond that—and I promise I'm not trying to be glib—who (else) cares?
If you're going to sink resources like internal staff time or freelance fees into a gift announcement, you're going to want that piece to interest or inspire other people, right?
Stevens' Donor and Alumni Engagement team understood that when they assigned me this article about a new endowed professorship to honor the late Dr. Stephen Bloom. They knew that the best way to tell this story was not through the anonymous donor or the money but rather the lives that Dr. Bloom touched. You can see it in the way they allowed me to structure the piece.
- Extended anecdote about how Dr. Bloom's voice literally endures at Stevens.
- Nut graf summarizing the basics of the gift (amount, designation, expressed intent).
- Personal recollections of Dr. Bloom from former colleagues and students—including the donor.
- Provost's comments about the challenges of hiring senior professors like Dr. Bloom today.
- Underscoring how the gift will help Stevens attract a Dr. Bloom-like figure to guide a new generation of colleagues and students at Stevens.
The result is a gift announcement—but also a human-interest piece. The article or its excerpts can fit any number of institutional comms channels, like the alumni magazine or the main university social media. It can reach audiences that don't typically opt in to development communications. Reading about Dr. Bloom might spark the warm fuzzies for alumni who remember their own experiences in Dr. Bloom's class. The story could inspire some of them to reconnect with one another and with the institution.
As I've written in this space before, quality development communications aren't fast or cheap. They require advance planning, research, coordination of sources, and great writers. But when you consider all the places quality development communications can go—and all the people it can reach—the investment doesn't seem quite so expensive after all.
Need help with your development storytelling strategy or execution? I'm here for you! Send me an email at kristinhansonwrites@gmail.com to get started.