It is incredible the power a story can hold for your audience. Testimonials and stories can be used for your nonprofits website, fundraisers, campaigns, and marketing purposes. Collecting strong and inspirational stories can inspire your audience to aid in your cause. They are necessary to gain trust, support, potential clients, and future events. Without testimonials and stories to share, a nonprofit is merely wondering, wanting to help others but don’t have their trust.
How to be Strategic with the Testimonials and Stories
There are many stories that your organization could tell, that doesn’t mean they are all the best option. Your stories should highlight the mission of your nonprofit, what it is that you do, and whose voice is being shared. Be specific in what you are looking to share so you know who to reach out to for these stories.
That doesn’t mean the testimonials and stories that don’t focus on that are helpful. You may receive feedback about certain employees, programs, culture, or something else that will make you look at how you are running things and what needs to change. However, as mentioned earlier you want o highlight the good ones that are focusing on what you are doing and capitalize on them.
Methods of Collecting Testimonials and Stories
Direct Contact
As an organization you know who is considered a success and if they would be willing to share their experience. Reach out to those individuals, see if they are interested in sharing their stories. Remember to ask in a personal and friendly manner so that they know that you thought of them and they weren’t just some name on a long list.
Ask Social Media Followers
Ask your Social Media followers to post a picture or video and share how your organization has impacted their life. Have them use a hashtag that you create solely for the purpose of collecting testimonials and stories so that submissions can be found easily.
Online Reviews
Encourage people who receive services from your nonprofit to leave a review online. Those reviews might not be enough to be a full story but can lead you to an individual who could supply you with a good testimonial or some parts of the review itself might even be useful on your website.
Reviews are also great for backend systems such as SEO for your nonprofit and being located. By getting reviews your nonprofit can be pulled up on web searches, or and will help your website gain traffic. This will make your nonprofit more visable to others and bring in more marketing opportunities for receiving donors or future potential clients.
Share Your Story Page
Add a page to your existing website for people can go to submit testimonials and stories. You can create a template that individuals can fill out with their experience or leave a simple introduction that tells them what to write about.
Testimonials and Stories are Critical for Success
Testimonials and Stories can be a daunting task but they are essential in building that trust, connection, and rapport with your audience. They allow your organization to speak for itself and show the impact that you have on your community.
Always be working toward building a reserve of testimonials and stories so that you always have them on hand and don’t have to continuously recycle through the same ones. This will enable you to show variety and different perspectives as well as the various programs that you operate in your nonprofit.
In short, testimonials and stories are part of the overall fuction of your nonprofit. They are necessary for success, gaining trust, receiving donations, and spreading the word. Whether you use programs, impliment asking for them by your employees, or other tactics, be sure it is a focus for your nonprofit to get reviews whenever you can!