guest post // How to Leverage Nonprofit Storytelling in Mobile Giving
By John Killoran, Snowball Fundraising
Fundraising experts everywhere know that mobile channels are the future of raising support. In fact, mobile giving statistics from Nonprofits Source reveal:
Donations from mobile giving have increased by 205% in recent years.
25% of donors use mobile devices to complete their donations.
51% of people who visit a nonprofit’s website do so on a mobile device.
While mobile communication is powerful on its own, it’s a virtually unstoppable method of reaching your donors when paired with storytelling techniques. After all, mobile devices have an unmatched open rate—imagine how engaged donors would be if they could receive compelling stories from your nonprofit anywhere and anytime!
In this guide, we’ll explore how to infuse each step of your mobile giving campaigns with storytelling. We’ll use the framework for starting a campaign defined by Snowball Fundraising’s mobile giving guide:
Evaluate your mobile fundraising logistics.
Choose mobile giving channels.
Select a mobile giving provider.
Incorporate mobile giving into your fundraising plan.
Track and adjust your strategies.
Let’s take a closer look at each of these steps through a storytelling lens, keeping in mind your nonprofit’s unique audience and the stories that will compel them to take action.
1. Support your narrative with campaign logistics.
Every strong event-planning approach involves thorough planning for each stage of the fundraiser. From promoting the opportunity to coordinating your follow-up efforts, you must plan the campaign’s logistics ahead of time to ensure everything runs smoothly.
Maximize donor engagement by guiding your audience through the story while the campaign progresses. Create a storytelling journey map that assigns different parts of the story to each campaign stage. Let’s imagine how a food bank’s mobile giving campaign could accomplish this:
Pre-launch: Introduce the cause and why your mobile giving campaign is the solution. The food bank could highlight statistics about food insecurity among local high school students and share the testimonial of a teenager named John, whose family will receive food from the campaign.
Launch: Kick off your campaign with an emotional appeal and simple instructions for getting involved. In our example, the food bank could share the testimonial of a high schooler eager to support her peers by donating. She could even demonstrate the donation process to show how easy it is.
Follow-up: Conclude the campaign by showing the impact of donors’ contributions. The food bank could revisit John’s story and provide an update that details how the campaign impacted his family.
Planning your story around each stage allows you to construct a cohesive narrative. Keep your communication checkpoints in mind to develop a storytelling timeline that guides donors from initially learning about the campaign to taking action.
2. Tailor stories to fit mobile giving channels.
When choosing channels for your mobile giving campaign, it’s important to focus on platforms where your audience is most active to ensure engagement with your content.
Once you’ve determined these channels based on data like open rates, craft storytelling formats for the channels you choose. Here are a few options:
Email marketing shares concise stories that connect donors directly to the impact of their gift.
Text-to-give campaigns leverage short, emotional appeals that inspire quick action.
Mobile giving apps allow for repeated access to your nonprofit’s donation portal, where your nonprofit can share new chapters in your story and fundraising progress.
For example, the food bank from our earlier example may use email to introduce John’s story. Then, it can launch a text-to-give campaign asking recipients to support families like John’s by texting the word “Donate.”
3. Look for a fundraising platform that supports storytelling.
Think of your fundraising software as a vehicle for delivering your story—ultimately, you’ll make the case for support, but you can let the software do the driving! Your solution can enhance storytelling when it offers the right functionalities and features, such as:
Customizable donation pages, which are the perfect place to share campaign-specific images and videos that bring your story to life.
SMS campaigns, which provide real-time progress updates, keeping donors informed throughout your campaign
Easy social media sharing, which allows donors to share your story with their personal networks and expand your campaign’s reach.
It’s also key for your software to gather fundraising data so you can evaluate the effectiveness of your storytelling—but we’ll get to that later.
4. Link your mobile campaign story to your overall fundraising plan.
While mobile giving campaigns can be widely successful, they’re meant to be held in conjunction with your other initiatives. This means your mobile giving campaign, as well as the story it’s built around, should fit into the broader picture of your nonprofit’s fundraising plan and goals.
Embed mobile giving into your larger narrative, pointing donors back to your nonprofit’s overall mission. For example, let’s say the food bank from our earlier example plans to host silent auctions as part of its fundraising strategy. This organization could promote a text-to-give campaign at the event as an alternative way for participants who don’t win an item to give.
The food bank might explain the auction’s goal of raising $10,000 to provide 5,000 meals to families in need. To embed mobile giving into its larger narrative, the organization could encourage attendees to also contribute by texting the word “Donate” to a specific number. By donating just $10, attendees could feed a high schooler like John, who wants the normal high school experience but is instead worried about where his next meal will come from.
5. Use campaign data to refine your storytelling strategy.
Effective storytelling depends on your audience’s preferences and motivations, which you can only gauge by evaluating their interactions with your content. Let performance data guide your storytelling by tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) and adapting your storytelling approach accordingly.
Some key metrics to track include:
Open rate: Measures the percentage of recipients who open your storytelling emails or text messages
Click-through rate (CTR): Measures how often recipients click on links within your storytelling emails or text messages
Conversion rate: Measures the percentage of people who donate after interacting with your storytelling content
Using this data, analyze which stories or formats perform best and adjust your content to maximize impact throughout the campaign. This way, you can tell stories that truly inspire participation and show donors the importance of their involvement.
Don’t forget to tell the greatest story of all: the story of your donors’ impact. After all, your donors are the reason your nonprofit is able to fulfill its mission—show your appreciation for their involvement by demonstrating the impact of their contributions.
This guest post was written by John Killoran.
John Killoran is an inventor, entrepreneur, and the Chairman of Clover Leaf Solutions, a national lab services company. He currently leads Clover Leaf’s investment in Snowball Fundraising, an online fundraising platform for nonprofit organizations.
Snowball was one of John’s first public innovations; it’s a fundraising platform that offers text-to-give, online giving, events, and peer-to-peer fundraising tools for nonprofits. By making giving simple, Snowball increases the donations that these organizations can raise online. The Snowball effect is real! John founded Snowball in 2011. Now, it serves over 7,000 nonprofits and is the #1 nonprofit fundraising platform.