Free Guide: Using Images for Visual Storytelling

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 can play a vital role in how effectively messages can reach various audiences. When images accompany text or a story, which element makes the difference in engaging the reader or viewer? Which motivates one to act? Using images strategically in external and internal communications planning and execution can be a vital component of success for an organization. Disparate pieces of advice can be found online and in publications urging organizations to utilize photos for different reasons and in an amalgam of ways; however, a consolidated handbook of how to incorporate photography into communications planning does not exist.

The primary objective of CSIC’s Nonprofit Imagery Fellow was to develop a framework that will walk nonprofit organizations through the process of communications planning with photography as an integral element.

Working closely with CSIC, the fellow examined more than 140 nonprofit organizations’ use of photography in their communications planning, utilizing communications audits, surveys, interviews, and a roundtable discussion with professionals from within the communications and photography industries.