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Nonprofit leaders know storytelling matters — but many are missing a critical opportunity to move hearts, shift narratives, and deepen support. A simple three-step framework can radically transform the way you communicate your mission.
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This article is a summary of Episode 46 of our Designing Tomorrow podcast. Each episode is a conversation between Jonathan Hicken, Executive Director of the Seymour Marine Discovery Center, and Cosmic’s Creative Director, Eric Ressler.
We talk about storytelling and content strategy a lot. In our experience people can feel just a little bit overwhelmed about getting started even if they get the value of it and they know they need to do it.
But what do you do? What do you talk about? What do you tell stories about? How do you tell those stories?
So, we thought it would be helpful to talk about a three-step content strategy that anyone can use and that we use all the time with our clients — one that seems very simple, but also the fact that a lot of people are not hitting even these really basic core pillars.
So whether you are an organization that is just getting started with storytelling and doing content work, or if you've been doing it for a long time, I think there will hopefully be some value in this framework.
So this three-step process can work regardless of whether or not you're telling stories online or telling stories in person or a mix of the two. It's channel agnostic. You can use this as a guide and it might influence what kind of content you post and in what channels. But you can use it however you want. That's the power in its simplicity.
This is one that some organizations are really, really good at and constantly beat the drum around. Here's the problem that we're solving. Here's why that problem is important. Here's why this problem is relevant and worthy of supporting across all of the other types of causes that are in our area or out.
And then there's some organizations that we work with that do none of this, literally never talk about the problem and are only talking about their impact, only talking about solutions.
We think naming and framing the problem is really, really important.
But, that’s easier for some organizations than others depending on what sector or what kind of work you're doing,
Arts and cultural organizations historically really struggle with this because it's hard to quantify a problem when you're talking about enriching society. And some organizations do a great job of it and situate the problem really brilliantly. But historically that's a really challenging thing.
When thinking about naming the problem, be sure that the problem that you’re naming is directly related to your core values. You can't just make up a problem in order to sell a content piece. You have to constantly bring that back to your core values.
So, it's not quite enough to name the problem. It also has to be connected to the core of what you do.
Maybe even the way we're saying “the problem” is a little bit of a misnomer because usually there's not ‘a’ problem, there is a problem set or many different ways of looking at the problem, many different scopes and scales of the problem.
Let’s take the example of a climate action organization. We'll use an example of an organization that we're working with called WEDO. They work as a consensus building organization, a bridge building organization. They work directly with other climate action organizations as well as other gender equality organizations. They work at the intersection of those issues. And one way you could name that problem is to name the problem about climate change and gender inequality. And that is a problem. That's kind of the big problem they're working on, but then are different scopes to that problem.
Another part of the problem that they're working on is how to get all of these other organizations who are doing work in that sector to be more effective as a movement. That's a different problem set. It's a different scope and scale of that problem. Or, they might focus even more on how certain organizations are working together effectively in a certain way, but they’re not able to fund feminist climate action heroes and allies and advocates to get to the conferences that they need to attend to have a voice in those conferences.
So those are three very different scopes and scales of problems that are all interrelated and all very much in the wheelhouse of the work that WEDO is doing. So even “the problem” is actually just a shorthand for many different problems. Then you start to ask yourself, How do you actually frame that problem? How do you tell a story around it?
You can see how even though this is a simple framework, it opens up tons of possibilities for storytelling and for content production and strategic communications at large. So how you name and frame the problem I think is really, really important. And thinking about different flavors or different framings of the problem, or different scopes and scales of the problem, can help you get a lot of legs out of this idea.
Think about scale-of-problem and scale-of-solution. What’s the spectrum? Are you talking about global level problems like global emissions? Are you talking about individual level problems such as: do you use too much water at home? And one of the things that we found is that certain audiences respond better to a certain scale of problems. Depending on your audience, and especially depending on a funder, what scale of problem they care about, framing it in their terms. That's really powerful.
Let’s look at an example of another client that we worked with recently called 35 Mile Foundation. We spent a lot of time thinking about how to name and frame the problem that they're trying to solve as an organization. Without getting into too much background and context, they're a foundation, so they have many different modalities as a foundation, but one of those is grant writing and supporting other organizations, and they work in the digital equity space. And what we mean by “digital equity” is they provide access, support, and they advocate for a more equal experience for more people to be empowered by the digital technology that powers so much of our world today.
Here are a couple of pieces of copy that we put on the website so you can see how we thought about naming and framing the problem for them.
Today, the digital divide prevents many historically marginalized people from tapping into the modern digital world. They're unable to take part in civil and democratic activities. They can't access important services, connect with friends and loved ones, or experience what's happening in arts, culture, and entertainment. Students without online access can't access classroom materials required to complete their homework. Wherever the internet is commonplace, people without access are keenly aware of being sidelined.
So we're hitting a lot of different vantage points around how that problem shows up for people. And I think that's a really important point. We have to personalize the problem and make it human — even if it's at a large scale. What are the trickle down effects of this problem not being solved? So that was our attempt. And obviously there's way more content that we're putting out with them besides just this one statement on their Homepage.
We’re pretty happy with where we landed for 35 Mile Foundation. It sets up a situation. It names a challenge. And it names the implication of that challenge. It says what's going on, broadly, and the implication of that situation is that these different groups of people aren't getting what they need — and without that, this is the damage to society or this is the damage to the individual. They're breaking down the problem.
This is reminiscent of a communication framework, which has a terrible acronym, but it's called SCIPAB — situation, complication, implication, position, action, and benefit. What it does is essentially breaks down a problem into these different pieces and then has a call to action at the end that benefits the listener. And we’re hearing that in the 35 Mile Foundation statement, the situation, the complication, and the implication of that complication.
This is something we intuitively do. We’re huge fans of having frameworks — even as starting points. So hopefully that's helpful to exemplify what we mean when we say thinking about different ways to frame the problem or different scopes and scales of that.
This one is maybe one that you think you're doing and maybe you even are doing it. What have you actually achieved as an organization? You might think about this as impact storytelling or impact metrics, and we will get into the different flavors of that, but I think this is one that gets outsized attention, and maybe even we could be a little bit guilty of really focusing on impact storytelling, and more impact storytelling, and for good reason.
But, this is one really important way that you build trust and credibility with your supporters, that you even get on the map of other folks who might want to get involved in your mission. People want to support organizations that are already making a difference.
There's always a Catch 22 there if you're just starting an organization and you don't have any meaningful impact yet. Because you haven't been around long enough to have that. So in certain cases, you have to earn this over time and right-size this based on whether you’re a 30-year old org or if you’re a year zero org and it's a new idea. Being really transparent about that is very important.
Keep in mind that for some organizations, the work can sometimes take years or decades for the impact to be visible. And that is a really hard story to tell — especially if you're an early-stage organization.
What we’ve been finding lately is that the challenges with these impact stories is almost the next level of “So what.”
We've used the tactic of asking “So What?” when we can't understand someone's mission when we're first working with them. And we suspect that this is common. Because a social impact leader is in the work day in and day out, so you intuitively understand the “So what.” But a supporter might not understand that at the same level and almost certainly doesn't. Even if they're an expert in your field, they don't understand your organization directly.
So, the “So what” problem or “So what” question, could be extremely powerful — especially if you stack 'em. Three levels of “So what: usually gets you down to that really insightful kernel. And if it's hard, it's even more reason to persevere and keep pushing and the higher up in the chain that you are as an organization — if you're doing policy advocacy work, if you're doing bridge building, consensus building work — the further you are from that boots on the ground direct impact, the more important distilling down that “So what” question into a very clear answer is absolutely critical.
It does need to be reciprocal to the problem. It needs to be solving that problem. There needs to be a feedback loop or some kind of logical connection between the problem and your impact. If that's not true, then I think there's some bigger questions to start to ask yourself.
So when we talk about sharing stories of impact, we often talk about emotional storytelling, human-centered storytelling, telling these stories about how actual humans are impacted positively by the work that you're doing. And that should absolutely be a tool in the toolbox for your impact storytelling. But it's not the only tool. And it’s worth breaking down a couple other ways to share some past and current impact stories for your organization. Each organization will have to rightsize this depending on how long they've been around if they're regional or global.
But one type of storytelling we want to point out is data-informed storytelling. How can you use some of your data about the impact that you've had as an organization, and how do you translate that into some kind of story that's either visual or statistics or metrics based?
We'll give you an example. So we've done some work with an organization called the High Atlas Foundation out of Morocco. They do community development work in Morocco through the lens of sustainability and women's empowerment. They're an awesome organization. You should definitely check 'em out. And one of the ways that we chose to do impact storytelling for them was through an impact map. So we built an interactive map on the website. You can go to it on the Impact page and it shows you all of the points of impact — all of the projects that they've done in various communities, big and small. And you can click on these points, you can learn more about the story, you can learn more about the impact that High Atlas Foundation and their partners had for that community.
That's a really powerful way to tell that story, possibly even more powerful than an individual story. You can see the scope and scale of the impact that this organization has had. So, we want to encourage social impact leaders to think about all the different ways they can showcase their impact and to think about especially how they might bring data in alongside some of that more human centered approach.
One way to think about storytelling and impact storytelling also comes down to defining the value that your organization is offering a consumer of your content. We can define value in a lot of different ways. For some organizations, it's going to be: I learned something, or I feel something, or I'm able to act on something at home to benefit my family or my friends.
There's a lot of different definitions of what value might be. But you need to be crystal clear in your mind about what value you offer your audience when you're putting out content on whatever channel it might be, and make sure that every piece of content that you're putting out is reinforcing or delivering that value. Part of the reason for that is then when someone comes across your post or they're scrolling through, they're going to stop because their Pavlovian response is that this is going to be valuable. I’ve got to stop and I’ve got to watch it, or I’ve got to listen.
We've definitely experienced that. We follow all kinds of different organizations and people, and there are some people in some organizations that if we see something from them, we’re going to stop and pay attention because they've delivered so much value that we know whatever they have to say is worth listening to.
Let’s go back a step and think about what is the purpose of sharing impact in the first place. We all reflexively know we should be doing it. But it's worth breaking down in a little bit more detail.
To us, it comes down to two main things:
Impact storytelling is a really good way to do that because it shows people that there's tangible progress happening. So even if they're not a supporter yet, people are really tuned into wanting to either subconsciously or consciously vet organizations and figuring out if this organization is even worth paying attention to. And if you don't do a good job with this second step of sharing stories of your past or current impact, people might not be convinced that you're worth supporting in the first place.
Let's break that down even further. If your organization has existed long enough — where decades have passed and now some of those impacts are starting to blossom — then just sharing these stories of individualized data points is not enough. You have to connect those individual level impact stories back to the big problem that you're solving. You need to do a better job of bringing it back to the big “So what.” of your organization.
The outcomes we’ve seen so far from this approach mostly come in the form of fundraising outcomes and in terms of anecdotal feedback from donors. We've seen increases in end-of-year fundraising. In one instance, it more than doubled their previous record. And part of it was because of leading with impact stories.
Time and time again, we've seen that the organizations that are consistently doing impact storytelling throughout the course of the year are leagues more successful with their end-of-year fundraising — because those are seeds you're planting all year long.
And the common mistake is thinking: Uh-oh, it’s time for end-of-year fundraising. Let's launch a big campaign — but you haven't built trust or credibility. You're not top of mind and you just get drowned out in the sea of noise.
So, without getting into numbers, we can't say for absolute certain that was the only or even the main thing that led to it. But what we have observed working with a lot of orgs for a long time is there's a very clear pattern. The more effective you are at impact storytelling, the more effective you're going to be at fundraising in general — but especially end-of-year fundraising — if you've been planting those seeds all year long.
Anecdotally, we're hearing from donors — some of whom have written responses to email campaigns — saying they really liked a particular impact story. Or they had no idea about the long-term impact.
And that's exactly the kind of stuff you should be looking at as leading indicators that impact storytelling is working — even more so than email open rates.
And what you quickly realize is that people don't know what you're doing if you're not doing this. And that makes perfect sense. It’s quite obvious when you really think about it. But when you're in the day-to-day — doing the mission work — you're not thinking about that. Because you see it, you touch it, you understand it. But if you aren't sharing those stories with them, how will the people who care deeply about your mission know unless they go out of their way to ask you for it? Sometimes people will ask. But often, they don't.
The third main point in the three-step content strategy is centered around your vision for the future and what that looks like.
Now, this is one that we see probably the least amount of time and effort put into. Probably everyone reading this has a vision statement on the About page of their website. That’s not what I'm talking about. That's a great first step. But we're talking about content strategy here. We're talking about what you’re consistently telling stories about again and again and again.
This vision piece is one that we are under-indexing on at large in the social impact space. And it's a really important one because you might have a sense of the vision. But if you can craft that vision story in a way that is compelling, relatable, clear, emotive, and something that people can really touch, smell, taste, and listen to — very viscerally almost — the more effective it will be as a content strategy pillar in your content.
For executive directors and CEOs who are tasked with producing and sharing these vision statements, sometimes it can feel a little bit overwhelming when you're making some big massive claim about this future state of the world that you and your heart know that you can't do alone. But when you preach this vision, you feel like you are saying to the world, I'm going to do this, or we're going to do this alone.
And so sometimes we chop ourselves off at the knees writing these vision statements because we don't want to be insincere or we don't want to reach too far. And that's the wrong mindset for this particular activity. You need to be really honest and credible with the mission side of things or how you do your work or what the impact really is. But when it comes to vision, this is the opportunity to do some really big experimental thinking.
Here are a couple of questions to use when I'm producing a vision statement:
There are these thought experiment questions you can ask yourself. But when it comes to this vision, there is a certain shared understanding that you're not doing it alone. You're just painting a picture that someone who's listening to you can stand behind and identify with and hope for — even if they understand it's not going to be you alone who's going to get it done.
Acknowledge that problem of feeling like it's a promise that you're going to keep and only you will do. That’s definitely the wrong way to think about it because it's going to immediately neuter your vision in a way that is not helpful.
What it really comes down to is you need to throw constraints aside within reason. You do need to scale your vision into the right size for you. You're not going to be the only organization or the only leader who's part of the global solution. But you're going to be a really integral part of it. And you need to get really clear about that desired future state and paint a picture about what it looks like when that happens, and help people imagine it with you. You’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this, and even people who care about the vision that you have and care about your organization, they might not have as clear of a picture of that vision.
We've all experienced meeting someone or working with or under someone or alongside someone who's truly a visionary, and it's so intoxicating. Because it helps open up your perception of what could be. And that is a really powerful thing. And to some degree, you have to spend a lot of time thinking about how you weave that story.
There are multiple layers of vision statements — maybe different contexts, maybe different problems that you're solving, maybe different audiences. And so it's actually quite a liberating feeling for social impact leaders to know that they can actually have or utilize multiple vision statements.
Think about the vision for your organization.
And you have to come up with a vision for all of those. But you can actually have an impact vision, and those other things aren't necessarily in conflict.
Similar to Problem Framing and Statement and Scope and Scale, there are different scopes and scales of the vision. It's not just one thing. So even calling it “The Vision” might even be a misnomer as well.
Here's what we’re hoping a reader can take away from this. These three steps of content strategy are probably all things you've thought about before. But what is the most important takeaway is that you have to consistently do this over and over and over and over and over again to the point that you are so bored telling these stories. And you have to just beat that drum and just keep beating that drum. And we’re not saying you should go stagnant with it and just never change. What we mean is that when you tell the same story so much, you're forced to be creative out of boredom. And that's a good thing.
We see organizations do one of these three really well, or two of these three really well. What we’ve also seen is that when you get all three and you're consistently doing them — it doesn't have to be exactly a third each, but somewhere in that range and with a consistent cadence — that's where the sum becomes greater than any of the parts. And it can really start to gel and take off.
Check out the full conversation on our Designing Tomorrow podcast.
Understanding who the audience is and who you're telling the story to and how you frame your problem relevant to their perspective — that's the golden ticket right there.
