Planned Giving Donor Stories That Inspire Others to Give
A Fundraiser’s Guide to Powerful Storytelling
You Can Write a Great Donor Story
Do you absolutely LOVE to write donor stories? We didn’t think so. But, as a successful fundraiser, you understand how powerful a donor story can be to your planned giving program. If you’re not working with Planned Giving Marketing yet (who would write a powerful, engaging story for you!), you’ll have to write the donor story yourself and try to capture the interest of other prospects.
Don’t worry! YOU CAN DO THIS!
Just keep these few key points to keep in mind and write your best donor story yet:
DONOR STORIES SHOULD INSPIRE
Your main goal is to engage people with an amazing, inspirational story of your planned giving donor! So, when you’re telling your donor story, make sure you capture the impact the planned gift is going to have on people. See, while your prospects, friends, and supporters do love your organization, it’s not the organization itself that inspires anyone to leave a gift. It’s what the organization accomplishes. That is–who do you help because of your mission?
When a planned giving story inspires someone to engage, here’s what’s going on in their subconscious:
- they realize people JUST LIKE THEM make planned gifts
- they realize you offer them a trusted place to support so they can really have an impact!
- they understand that making a planned gift is a joyful, positive, and special thing to do. The mere fact that one of your donors would SHARE a story is inspiring!
DONOR STORIES SHOULD FOLLOW A STRUCTURE
People learn in a systematic way. It’s just how our brain thinks. So arrange your donor story in a way that attracts, engages, and inspires. To do that, let’s take a trip back in time. Remember the Five Ws in your English class? Who, what, when, where, and why? Well, donor letters need a lot of that information, too. And the structure is important, because when you follow this structure, you capture someone’s attention faster so they will keep reading!
The Plan for a Perfect Story:
- Start with the WHY: Why does your donor care about your cause? That’s not necessarily the same thing as caring about your org. Find the WHY. Start with the WHY.
- Tell the WHAT in one sentence: What exactly did the donor do? She made a great decision to update her will and include a bequest to Your Organization. That’s it. You don’t need to include the legal process.
- Talk about the WHO: A planned giving donor story isn’t a biography! Just include anecdotal information about your donor as it relates to her connection to your organization to set the overall inspirational context of the story.
- Finally, end with WHY again: Remind the readers what happens now. It “closes the story loop.” It can be as simple as a sentence that says something similar to, “Now Fabulous Donor feels confident knowing generations of students will continue to be trained in the Franciscan tradition.”
Do you need help writing your next donor letter? There’s no need to struggle. Planned Giving Marketing is here to make your job easier by providing effective marketing tools that help you get more engagement and more gifts.