Your nonprofit’s story is your most valuable asset. Your story can inspire action and create change. In addition, nonprofits that tell compelling stories tend to raise the most funds.

At the 2012 Nonprofit Technology Conference, we moderated an incredible session called The Future of Nonprofit Storytelling with JD Lasica (Socialbrite), Jenna Sauber (Case Foundation), and Cara Jones (Storytellers for Good).

In this session, we explored the best practices of nonprofit storytelling, mediums and channels for telling those stories, and where storytelling is headed in the future for nonprofits.

The top 10 insights, in no …

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Stories are powerful. From the beginning of humanity, stories have been how we make sense of the world, share wisdom, and explain our existence.

Storytelling is the most powerful tool nonprofits have at their disposal. All good stories engage audiences, influence their behavior, and inspire them to share the emotion felt from the story. It’s used to start movements and create social change.

The importance of online storytelling for nonprofit fundraising and advocacy is evolving quickly. With the use of social media, sharing good stories have become easier, faster, and cheaper than ever before. Yet for most nonprofits, stories are …

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Storytelling is one hot nonprofit trend. You can use it to reposition and grow your company, champion a cause, or reboot your career.

No matter what great nonprofit practices you have in place, nothing will ever shift unless your audience really identifies with the story you tell.

My friend Michael Margolis over at Get Storied has put together a totally inspiring (and totally practical) 5-part video series on storytelling. And the best part is that it’s completely free!

Go check it out!

This awesome complimentary video series is all part of the run up to Reinvention Summit 2, which is world’s …

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Storytelling is a culture of communication for your nonprofit. It’s how you communicate with donors, supporters, and staff. Storytelling is a driving factor for online fundraising success.

One of the most effective ways to tell stories is through images. Images evoke emotion — the root of what drives your nonprofit or cause.

We found this free guidebook developed by the Center for Social Impact Communication at Georgetown on how you can use images to create an impact. It walks you through the types of images you should be using and how you can systematically capture them.

Here’s their description:

Images …

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Video is a powerful way to raise awareness and fundraise. YouTube and Vimeo are the two largest video hosting communities; which is better?

YouTube and Vimeo had approximately 150 million and 7 million unique visitors last month, respectively. With the larger number of users, YouTube allows you to tap into a potentially large community of supporters.

As with any technology, there is a learning curve relative to video sharing. Vimeo provides a free video school packed with entertaining video tutorials; they even have a free online acting school. The YouTube schooling isn’t quite as entertaining, but they do provide free …

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Today we interview Joe Lambert, founder of the Center of Digital Storytelling out in SF. He’s one of our panelists at the Nonprofit Technology Conference this year too. Here he shares his thoughts on the future of nonprofit storytelling.

What is the future of nonprofit storytelling? How is it going to change?
I recently found myself reading Robert Fuller’s Somebodies, Nobodies and the Politics of Dignity, a book about hierarchy and what he calls “rankism”, and the explicit and implicit ways we all abuse our large and small privilege and power as people, more or less without exception.

I believe …

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When I left the TV news business, the only thing I knew for sure was that I wanted to tell inspiring stories. When I looked around most of those stories were coming out of the nonprofit world, so I decided to put my focus there. I believe that nonprofit stories will continue to be some of the most powerful of our time but that nonprofits will need to tell the following types to get the stories produced and noticed in the ever changing media landscape.

Stories that turn up the emotional volume
With thousands of websites and new videos created …

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We are thrilled to announce that our e-book The Starter Guide to Non-profit Video Storytelling (which we co-wrote with ListenIn Pictures) is now available for download!

In the book, we describe how your non-profit can create a video strategy that will set you up for success. We explore how to create video which push people to action, what kinds of stories hold the greatest emotional power and how to ensure that your video will not only be seen, but shared.

Get your copy now at www.startstorytelling.com

And don’t forget, every Thursday for the next four weeks one tweeter will …

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I firmly believe that strong storytelling leads to more donations. Storytelling is the substance that fundraisers need to use to be more effective online fundraisers. Because of that, we interviewed Cara Jones, Founder at Storytellers for Good and an Emmy Award recipient. She shares her expert advice in how non-profits can use storytelling for fundraising, how they can get started, and tips on how to craft the most compelling story. This is an invaluable read. Check it out below.

Tell us a little bit about who you are
In addition to being a lover of life, family, friends, stories, and …

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