If you develop communications for a nonprofit organization, you already know that powerful nonprofit storytelling is essential for winning grants, adding emotional impact to your annual reports and donor letters, and connecting authentically with your social media audience.

To tell stories well, you first need access to your organization’s stories. That’s why many nonprofits keep track of success stories in a storybank. A storybank is a shared document (usually a spreadsheet) that every member of your communications team can add to and draw from to create meaningful content.

Creating a shared document is helpful. But to be sure that the information you capture about each story is actually useful, think about what an outsider might need to be able to craft a good piece of writing from your storybank.

Remember: your storybank will grow every year. It will outlast many of your staff members. An outside contractor or a new staff member should be able to access all the information they need from your storybank—without depending on someone’s memory.

Using this lens, it’s clear that it isn’t enough to write a brief overview of what happened. To really make stories come alive, writers more information. Here are some things you can add to your storybank document that will make it much easier for an outsider to tell your stories.

Permission

Before you document any story in your storybank, make sure you have permission from the recipient or source. Just because someone has told you their story—even in writing (in a thank-you note, for instance)—does not mean they have given your organization permission to share their story or their name in your marketing.

Be especially sensitive to permissions when you’re seeking to tell the stories of people in marginalized groups. Follow their lead and take steps to ensure a person who is part of an oppressed group never feels coerced to share their story. You can ask but they get to choose.

If you don’t have one, create a formal process for seeking and gaining permission to share a person’s story (written or otherwise) and their image. Then:

Create a field in your storybank where you can indicate that each story is approved by the person or people involved for use in your marketing, or
Include a statement at the top, noting that the organization has gained permission to share every story in the document.

Quotes

Good quotes, directly from the source, are gold for writers. They create a direct bridge between the recipients of your services and your supporters. And they help a writer not only structure a piece of writing but to center its structure around the voices of your recipients.

With each story, include a field where you can insert a minimum of two quotes from people involved in the story. You want quotes to highlight the emotional and/or physical impact of your work. Be sure to identify the speaker, including their full name and their relationship to your organization or to the community.

Interviews

Sometimes you may have just a couple of quotes from a recipient. But often, quotes were pulled from longer interviews. Make sure you keep any interview files you have: transcriptions, audio recordings, cell phone videos—anything like that. Create a field for links to this content within your storybank.

This gives your writer the context they need to accurately tell your story. Listening back to an interview can also help a writer or staff member put a new spin on a story you’ve told before.

Video or audio files

In fact, you should keep any relevant video or audio files that relate to the stories logged in your storybank. Did your organization host a volunteer event where different participants took brief, fun cell phone videos? Ask for permission to use them for future marketing content and link them in your storybank. Raw footage of people packing donated school supplies or dropping off meals can show your contracted writer what it was like to be there.

Leadership’s perspective

To tell a good story, your supporters also need to hear from people who are outside the story but inside your organization. Include a field to record what your organization’s executive director, head of programming, or board members think about this particular story. It’s especially helpful when a leader can highlight how a particular story demonstrates that your organization is achieving its mission.

Statistics

Include a field for statistics or other supporting data. If a story has a direct link to an impactful statistic, include that statistic directly in the document instead of vaguely suggesting what your writer should look up or try to find. For instance, if your story is about building a backyard garden bed for a community elder, plug in the number of total gardens your organization has built for senior citizens, the number of seniors affected by hunger in your county, or the impact that garden-fresh ingredients has on the health of people over age 70. In this field, you can also include a link to a longer report.

Media coverage

Has this story or someone involved in it been in any media reports? Create a field where you can link press coverage. Your writer or new staff member needs to know if this story has appeared anywhere before and, if so, whether or not the news outlet used any of your storybank quotes.

A storybank is a powerful nonprofit storytelling tool. Increase its effectiveness (and save your staff time later) by making it more robust—so that even someone from outside your organization can open it up and start writing.

Nonprofit Storytelling: Making A Storybank Useful For Your Writers