How To Tell a Quick Story in Your Year-End Fundraising Letter

nonprofit communication strategydonor communication

Oct 28

Stories are an incredibly important part of nonprofit donor communication, especially when a nonprofit is asking supporters for donations. That’s because stories are, essentially, a nonprofit’s product. What a donor purchases is the opportunity to join in the story and the feeling they get from doing good in the world. That feeling begins with a good story.

A lot has already been written about how important it is for nonprofit organizations to tell stories, so I won’t belabor that point except to say that stories (done well) create emotion, and people make giving decisions based on emotions, not facts. That’s not to say that facts aren’t important to include. They just need to be delivered with a story. Telling stories is the fastest way to take your mission from abstract idea to concrete action in the minds of your supporters.

In letters or emails to supporters asking for a donation at year-end, stories usually need to be brief. There’s a simple formula you can try to create a quick story for your year-end appeal letter (or email).

Before I get into the formula, a quick note on nonprofit stories: The hero of the story is not your organization. The hero is your donor, since your donor enabled the work to happen. And, the hero is different from the main character. The main character is helped by the hero (your donor!). Your organization is a guide, showing the hero how to help.

What you need to have in your year-end appeal quick story

Here are the elements you need in order to create a simple story for your year-end fundraising letter (once you’ve already set the stage for who your organization is and who you help):

setting
character
problem
emotion
resolution because of your nonprofit’s work

Let’s look at each of these briefly:

1) setting

This is the time and/or location where the story takes place.

2) Character

This can be someone your organization has helped (or their family member), an animal or even a plant or tree species – someone (or something) specific who was helped because of your work.

3) Problem

Why is this character being helped by your organization? What brought them to you?

4) Emotion (conflict)

What was the problem doing to your character? Why should your donor care?

5) Resolution

How did your organization help the character? (Or really, how did the donor enable your organization to help this character?)

year-end appeal message quick story formula

Here’s a formula for how this can work in a year-end fundraising letter or email to your donors. Keep in mind that at this point in your letter or email, you should have already created a rapport in your introduction and given a larger story about what’s going on in your organization.

Support from [people like you/our donors/our members, etc] means we were able to [general fact about recent accomplishment]. [Introduce setting, name a specific individual], [describe what the problem was that brought this individual to you]. [Add details/feelings about the problem.] [Specifics on how your organization helped individual]. [Possible quote to illustrate].

year-end appeal letter quick story examples

For example, here’s how a fictional organization that helps under-resourced children might create a story using this formula (again, this story would come after you’ve set up what’s going on with the organization):

Support from people like you meant we were able to supply tablets to dozens of children in our local community. When Covid-19 closed the schools, Sara couldn’t attend online because her family didn’t have an extra computer. Sara’s parents were very concerned that she’d fall behind her classmates and they worried that she’d struggle to catch up. Fictional Friends of the Children was able to give her a tablet, and Sara was able to successfully complete 3rd grade. Sara’s mom told us, “Without that computer, I don’t know how we would have kept up with her schoolwork.”

Here’s an example of how this might work with a plant species as the character (also fictional):

Support from members like you meant Fictional Forest Organization was able to protect hundreds of acres of Ash trees in Fictional County. The ash trees in this area were under assault by the emerald ash borer beetle and were at risk for being completely wiped out in the next five years. Our scientists were highly concerned about whether these trees would make it. Luckily, the insecticides placed the base of the trees destroyed the insect invaders and restored these beautiful ash trees to health.

If you are sending a year-end letter or year-end fundraising email to people who already know your organization — they’ve supported you in the past, they’ve volunteered, they’ve responded to your social media ads or connected with you in some other way — they likely are moved by the work you do and welcome hearing more about how you are helping your community. They want to help you achieve your goals and be a part of your story. The key is to share that story with them and invite them to be a part of it.

(Photo by Chris Lawton on Unsplash)

By the way, if you are writing your year-end letter and don’t know where to start, you can grab my free year-end letter guide here. It includes a template letter and a year-end appeal letter sample as well. I hope you find it helpful.

Free guide to writing your year-end appeal letter. This year-end appeal fundraising guide includes a sample year-end appeal letter and template.

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