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Planning a nonprofit fundraising event can feel overwhelming, but it doesn't have to. Download Bloomerang's free event planning checklist that walks you through every critical step before, during and after your event. Save time, reduce stress. We don't need more stress. And give your supporters an event they'll remember. What you're going to find in the checklist A step by step pre event guide. A post event checklist to help you close the loops. Building built in reminders to boost visibility like prepping social media posts and how to collect on site donations and help turn a good event into a great one. So just get your copy by going to www.jcsocialmarketing.com backslash checklist jcsocialmarketing.com checklist now on to the episode.
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Hello and welcome to Nonprofit Nation. I'm your host, Julia Campbell, and I'm going to sit down with nonprofit industry experts, fundraisers, marketers, and everyone in between to get real and discuss what it takes to build that movement that you've been dreaming of. I created the Nonprofit Nation podcast to share practical wisdom and strategies to help you confidently find your voice, definitively grow your audience and effect build your movement. If you're a nonprofit newbie or an experienced professional who's looking to get more visibility, reach more people and create even more impact, then you're in the right place. Let's get started.
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Hello, this is Nonprofit Nation with your host, Julia Campbell. And today we're answering the question, how can nonprofits tell powerful, compelling stories without compromising the dignity of the people that they serve? And in this episode, I'm going to welcome Carly Uler, marketing director at Memory Fox and creator of the Ethical Storytelling Report. With a rich background in fundraising, marketing and communications across organizations like the Breast Cancer Coalition of Rochester and the BOMA Project, Carly has seen firsthand how storytelling can both uplift and also unintentionally harm. So we're going to discuss all of that today. And Carly, welcome back to Nonprofit Nation.
C
Thrilled to be back. Always love talking about this topic. So, yes. So excited to be here.
A
Yay. I'm really, I'm excited. And storytelling, as everyone knows, one of my absolute favorite topics. So you've held quite the number of diverse roles in your professional life. You've done grassroots fundraising, you've done strategic communications. How has storytelling sort of remained a common thread across all of these different jobs and positions?
C
Yeah, so I certainly have run the gamut.
D
Right.
C
I've worked at big missions, small missions, you know, local, international stuff like that. Storytelling kind of always sees its way through because I would be in charge of the email communications or in charge of, like, editing appeals or writing grants. And really, at every single point of being a part of a development department really does come some form of storytelling for me. Specifically, I have been in the position of fundraising where I need to speak on behalf of the communities we serve and kind of represent them, you know, locally. I've also been in the position where I've been asked to interview people. People. So, yeah, it's just always something that has been top of mind and that I have obviously now continued to work on at memory talks.
A
I love that. So I reached out to you because I've recently read your really great article on Nonprofit Hub, and it's entitled I Wish Someone Would have Told Me Stories can be Ethical and Still Raise Funds. And in this article, you reflect on a moment where you questioned the ethics of a story that you were asked to tell. So can you walk us through what that was like and sort of how this shifted your perspective?
C
Yeah, absolutely. So, as a brand new development coordinator, I was put in several positions where I would be asked to interview people for an upcoming fundraising event, particularly a gala. This wasn't just at one role. I don't want to call anybody in particular out. There was several instances where things like this would happen. I would be put in the position of being asked to interview somebody who I had never met before, who I didn't actually know their backstory, or I knew maybe a few snippets of their backstory. And I was given a set of questions. And then I would be told a variation, you know, maybe even not so gently told, if they don't cry, this isn't going to work for us.
A
Oh, my gosh.
C
And, you know, I was brand new to these roles. These were things I was being asked to do. These were things I had seen other people do. And, you know, on one hand I thought, well, okay, I get it. That means that we've got a real story here.
D
Right?
C
We've got something people will really engage with and. And connect with and understand with. But it never really quite felt right. But of course, I would go ahead and I would be doing these things. I would. Because I was put in these situations.
A
And I would rather you thought you needed to do.
C
Yeah. And I would say, well, you know, I've been asked to do this. It's part of my job. Or it felt like it was part of my job, and I simply hadn't been taught to do anything else. So it just seemed like, okay, let's do it maybe. Kind of a specific example that I will share is I coached for many years in Kenya coach lacrosse. So I would go over there and I would work with the girls. And we created a team that we ended up taking to the World cup one year. And it was fabulous. But in order to make sure the team could do that, we did have to do a ton of fundraising. And it was for everything. Things as small as being able to provide water at practice. So I know you have athletes, your children are athletes. That's not usually something that the team has to provide.
D
Right.
C
You usually have a parents that provide things like that. But that just wasn't the case. So we were doing a lot of fundraising here in America, you know, chatting with, you know, teams I used to play for, teams I used to coach for. You know, they were so supportive and they loved this idea. And they'd say, oh, well, we would love to fund a player, right, to fund a season, but can we, can we get to know them? Can we know more about their story? And of course, we know kind of the underlying thing behind that question really means can you tell us how sad it really is? But I never really felt super comfortable digging into those details. For one thing, those weren't things that I was privy to, so why would I go ahead and kind of dig into that? But on the flip side, it really felt more important to talk about lacrosse and how important it was to these girls.
A
So how, like, life changing.
C
Right? Right. And like, things that I learned from lacrosse were the same things that they were learning from lacrosse. So instead of kind of asking them questions about things that had happened to them in the past or things that were even currently happening to them in their everyday life, I instead would ask, are they comfortable with me taking a picture with them in their lacrosse gear? You know, we're together, we're a team together. I would ask them about their favorite thing about learning lacrosse or their favorite thing about practice today. And those were the things I would go back and share with people. And people really. They ate that up. You know, they loved it. They thought it was so interesting because it really wasn't all that different, which I think kind of is at the core of a lot of what we do in terms of fundraising.
D
Right.
C
We don't want people to feel like they are othered or that they're all that different. That's why we're building community with our donors, with the people we serve.
D
Right.
C
Because in actuality, we're all sort of close to Maybe being someone that might need to receive that service at some point. So, yeah, that's kind of a long way for me to say. There have been just a lot of ways that I've come up. I've been hit with the obstacles that have to do with ethical storytelling before I even really knew what that meant.
A
I agree. Also, I worked in. I've worked with some pretty sensitive topics and with organizations where confidentiality was paramount and integrity and storytelling is always paramount. But it was really important that we not interview people in crisis. Like we used to talk about it as you don't want to interview people with open wounds, you want to interview people with scars. Maybe kind of a gross, A gross way to say it, but it really stuck with me. I thought, oh, that makes sense to me. Then I also felt incredibly uncomfortable sometimes in these circumstances where I was coming into this organization. I was brand new, I was from Boston, I was living in Virginia. And a lot of the women that I would be asked to interview were women of color. They were a lot older than me, and I Was this like 25 year old white girl from Boston. And it made me really feel like the power dynamics felt really off. And I think that a lot of development directors tend to get put in these positions because they want, like you said, to do their job and they really genuinely want to tell these stories and they want to get the word out well about the mission, but they're not sure how to push back and they're not sure how to reframe it. So, you know, why do you think, like, the trauma forward narrative has become so prevalent in nonprofit communications? Because I think many fundraisers do feel this pressure to share stories. Like you were saying.
C
I think that probably the most simple answer can sometimes be the correct answer, which is that it has worked for fundraising in the past. It is a way that has proven people can raise funds because these are stories that connect with people and there are things that make people feel emotions. And kind of getting back to what I was saying at the beginning, which is we also haven't been taught a better way to do it, or we haven't been shown a better way to do it, a lot of people are super skeptical that if they try to implement, you know, ethical storytelling practices in terms of like ethical story collection and ethical story sharing, those are almost two different buckets. But. But both of them together kind of make up this new form of storytelling. And it does remove all of those kind of trauma forward old behavioral things that we used to do. But yeah, I think that there are many people like me that even though they sort of felt icky about what was happening or they felt like it wasn't quite right, you could always sort of justify it by saying, but we do need to raise more funds for what we're doing here at the mission. And hopefully we are getting to a point where we're hitting a crux of that changing. And. And I do feel that way personally, that I'm already seeing that, but always more work to do.
A
So you mention the importance of agency, which is giving the story subjects control over how their stories are told. How can small nonprofits do this? I feel like small nonprofits always say, oh, we have limited resources, we have no time. How can they make this shift?
C
Yeah, there are a few things you can start doing no matter what size your nonprofit is. And some of that is just a mindset shift of your own changing of your own mindset. Right. So the first thing, kind of one of the big things that I learned in the first ethical storytelling report, something that I had never even considered before, was this idea that consent is actually not in perpetuity. So we often think about, okay, well, even if you have a form that people read and that they consent to, and it says, we're planning to share it here, here, and here, and they say, I agree, and they share maybe a video or a photo with you, there is another element to that which comes with. There should be really a time restriction on that consent form. And then we need to check back in with that storyteller and make sure they're actually still okay with how that story is portraying them and seeing. See, even if they have an update, maybe they have something new to share with you. But, yeah, that was something brand new to me that I had never considered, because in previous roles, we simply thought, we got it, we got the consent form. I'm good to use it forever and ever and ever. I never have to check back in. And I know for me, just operationally, that was still challenging because, well, for many reasons, but because the turnover at nonprofits is so high, we would often lose wherever that consent form had been originally stored, wherever somebody had originally talked to the person, maybe they'd already changed the identifying factors. We weren't sure if they had been changed before. We weren't even sure when that story had been recorded. So kind of just, even from an organizational standpoint, having a great policy in place that just says, we're going to collect stories every year at this time, and two years later, we're going to check Back in with that storyteller. If we plan to use that story again. Of course. Course, that would be a good rule of thumb. Of course. On the other hand, if you're not planning to use that story again, just retire it and you don't need to worry about it ever again.
A
When you were talking, I was thinking about donors choose. Do you know donors choose the charity?
C
Yeah.
A
So there's a blog post they wrote. I'll have to post it in the show notes. And they were talking about the stories that they're collecting from teachers because they help teachers raise money for their classrooms. And they tell stories in a way where it's sort of like asset framing first. So it never starts with, I'm from a poor district in xyz. You know, we have no money for pencils and this and that. It usually starts with, my kids are passionate about art. Art supplies are really expensive. Here's a way you can help support, you know, kids art. Kids love for art. I so really like that. Like, do you see that working? And how can nonprofits really do that? Asset. I think it's called asset framing. Going to have to look that up. Yeah, no, that is beforehand.
C
And we sometimes. We sometimes refer to it as strength based framing or strength based messaging. We also talk about it sometimes about person first framing. Right. So making sure that we're putting the person first in the story and not just their circumstances or not to something that might describe them at one point in their life. Um, but same with strength based or asset based framing. I actually have a great example for you.
A
Yes.
C
Is very similar to what you shared. Which in the 2025 Ethical or the 2024 Ethical Storytelling Report, there's five case studies and those are, you know, we sent out this form and nonprofits willingly wrote in their own things that they had improved over the past year. And kind of the. We asked them about the problem that they were experiencing, the solution that they came up with, and then the outcomes. So those were short term and long term outcomes. One of the case studies comes from our friends that I would rather be reading. They are a small Kentucky nonprofit. They help children with summer programs and after school programs.
A
Great name.
C
I know. And it's focused on reading skills, of course. So they.
A
It literally tells you exactly what their mission is.
C
Exactly. Yes. And you know exactly. Right. You're. You're already in the mission.
D
Right.
C
You can picture it. So they had previously never really done any storytelling because they just weren't sure how to get stories from children and who to really put Them in front of and how that whole process was going to work. And they're in particular, they were nervous because in order to qualify for their program, they actually have a program that was is trauma informed literacy support. So they knew that the children that were a part of that program inherently had things about their background that were more sensitive. So they were like, okay, we wanna do some sort of storytelling. We really wanna show people the great work we're doing, but we really don't want to talk about our children's background stories. We don't wanna put them in the position where they have to talk about it themselves. So they decided, we're only going to ask strength based prompts and we're only going to ask them to our students through their own mentors. So people they were comfortable with. So they have these great prompts where they would just ask things like, what do you want to be when you grow up? Or what do you love about yourself? Or they would say to the mentors, you know, when you pick up the kids to come to the program, are they chattering in the hallway and what are some things they're saying? You can probably picture some of their answers, right? They're so cute. There's this great clip where this kid says, when I grow up, I want to be a soccer player. And to do that, I need to have perfect attendance and I need to be able to read. So I get into college and I'm like, it really is that simple, right? Like, it's like, this is what he's doing here, right? He's going to go, you know, be a soccer player. Yes. So my point really is what they wanted to do is to just get strength based prompts. They were only going to ask kids about things that made them happy and excited and made them feel, you know, like they were really the heroes of their own story. And then they put those in front of their donors and the donors ate it up. They ended up making one composite video. And when they showed it at their most recent fundraising breakfast, they actually raised 75% more than they originally had thought they were going to raise at that breakfast. So that's a lot more than I've ever. I've never broken a fundraising goal like that before in my life. And I don't expect to. But yeah, that was really incredible to learn from them.
A
That is just a wonderful case study. It's how you frame the questions, having these tools in place, like you're talking about having a policy, having these questions. So sort of this infrastructure setting this up so you're setting yourself up for success. You're sort of setting yourself up for where you want to go and the stories that you want to tell. And I really think that we have, like, trauma fatigue lately. I mean, the news, the headlines, I just think that people, they're not looking for that from nonprofits. They're looking for inspiration. They're looking for ways they can help. And sure, they want to make sure they're fulfilling a need, but the end result. What is the end result? And it is a child knowing that they are going to be able to go to college or, you know, wanting to fulfill their dream of being a soccer player. And at the end of the day. And best buddies does this in a phenomenal way. They always have. The mentors do the storytelling. They're very sensitive around the stories that they tell. And it's always aspirational.
C
Yes.
A
It's always sort of based on hope and based on the relationship the mentors have with the mentees and then what the mentees want to accomplish.
C
I think especially you're seeing that more now because of the way that we as, as a human race, are enjoying consuming content at this point.
A
Yeah.
C
We like to see short videos. We like to see things that are making us laugh or things that are making us feel happy or things that are making us feel inspired. It's really like you. Like you were just alluding to. It's less and less that we're trying to go about our everyday activities and see things that are making us feel deep sadness, deep despair. And instead, we're trying to kind of navigate in this world where we see glimpses of hope or we see how things that we can impact are actually giving people relief to continue to live full lives.
D
Right.
C
These are things that make us want to donate once, but also be a part of that community and go back and donate again, which, of course, is the key to every great fundraiser.
D
Right.
C
You want to have recurring donors, too.
A
Tell me about some of your favorite tools. I know Memory Fox is a great tool. Happy to hear more about Memory Fox. For our listeners that are not familiar with it, what are some of your favorite tools to collect and share stories?
C
Right. Yeah. So Memory Fox, that is kind of the crux of what we do. We help nonprofits collect videos, photos, written testimonials. We do that through an ethical storytelling lens. So we do make sure that when stories come through, we work with our customers to make sure they are collecting that consent and that. That is upfront so people understand before they submit a story. We do often advocate for strength based prompts when it comes to what you're going to ask your audience to share. And kind of a newer thing that we have been implementing is also this idea of consent removal. So if somebody does submit something and maybe a few days or a month or a year later, they say, you know what, I'm actually not comfortable with that being shared anymore. We have a mechanism where they're able to then remove their consent and we'll remove that from the account. So just kind of some simple things that you could implement within a technology solution that actually can make your storytelling process more ethical. But you're exactly right that really where it starts is within your own culture of storytelling at your nonprofit. I always advocate for nonprofits to create an ethical storytelling standards guide. Kind of just an additional thing. Right. You know, we're making guides for everything at this point.
D
Right.
C
We got AI policy, we've got normal onboarding, we've got volunteer guides. Why not put something on paper that says these are things we are committed to in terms of an ethical storytelling standpoint? Because we're not always telling stories, just informal appeals.
D
Right.
C
Sometimes we're at networking events and there might be ways that we want to talk about our community that everyone just might not be currently aware of. So letting your volunteers know, letting your board members know, letting your other staff members know, this is how we are talking about our community. We, we're all on the same page here. I highly recommend an ethical storytelling standards guide.
A
I love that. Not to put you on the spot. Do you have any examples of that? Or like, what should we include in that? What's the table of contents in that?
C
Okay, love it. Yes. So in the report, I do have a deep dive of eight things that I recommend in an ethical storytelling standards guide. A couple I will share here because, you know, off the top of my.
A
Head, we want people to download the ethical storytelling report, which we'll talk about next. Yes, please tell me. Couple tips.
C
Definitely. Top thing would be the strength based language that you want to use in terms of talking about your community. That might be something that comes directly from what your community has said they would like to be. Would like to have their terms be. It could be something where you've looked at your website and you've rethought a few words that you currently have maybe in your mission or on your homepage. A great example, an easy example that we see a lot is a lot of domestic violence shelters. They have made the switch from their website saying domestic violence victim and they have made the switch to saying survivors of domestic violence. Right. So that's an easy one that we see a lot. You also often see, instead of people using the term homeless, homeless person, you might say a person who is currently unhoused. So putting that person first, putting the thing that is happening to them as. As one circumstance of what they're currently going through. So things like that kind of top of mind, put those in your ethical storytelling standards guide. So then people say, oh, I understand that this is how. This is an easier way to talk about our community. And if you have specific terms you want to avoid, make sure those are listed right next to it. So they're saying, okay, it's almost a replacement.
D
Right.
C
And that's an easy way to. To kind of replace those things in your head. Another thing I love to recommend is putting exercises that people can practice out loud when it comes to using that new language. I know I've been a part of a board before where we have actually done this as part of a board meeting. We were given scenarios to talk about, you know, like if we were asking for donations or something at a networking event. And it was super helpful to really practice the language. And it makes you kind of not feel like you're going to mess something up when you get in public.
D
Right.
C
You're practicing. So practice, you know, doesn't always make perfect, but it makes for better.
D
Right.
A
Those are fabulous. I know you have so much more in the ethical storytelling report. So tell me about this report. It's now in its third year, is that right?
C
So, actually, we have two reports that are out, the 2023 and the 2024. And I am about to start collecting answers and getting new case studies for 2025. So stay tuned, everybody. 2025 will be out in December. You heard it here first.
A
Oh, awesome. And they'll have to have you back on. So tell me why you created the report. And then what are some sort of surprising, impactful findings?
C
Right. So we created the report honestly, out of necessity. We were being asked by our own customers questions like, what am I supposed to do if the people I serve have very sensitive stories that we are not sure how to share? Or they would ask us what is a great way to collect consent where I know people will understand the form? And all of us on the Memory Fox team, we hadn't really considered those questions. We just knew what our tool did. We knew what we envisioned it to do for nonprofits, and we hadn't thought about kind of the ethical dilemmas that can sometimes come up when it comes to storytelling. So out of necessity, we started asking these questions to thought leaders that know that have been doing this work, that have been really focused on this for a long time. And we took all of their answers and we put it into one report. So that's essentially where the report comes from. We have survey results and then written answers that kind of address all those big topics. And then of course, the case studies. So then in the most recent report, I'll share two findings. One that is a not so good finding and one that is a great finding. So number one, I asked people in the survey about consent. I asked if they currently, if they first if they felt consent was important when it came to nonprofit storytelling. You probably can imagine almost 90% of people said it was extremely, the most, extremely important, the highest thing you could possibly rate it. But these, these sort of unfortunate part comes with the next question which was, do you feel like your nonprofit is currently collecting consent, like in a solid way? Like you have a system that is currently great and only 24% actually said they currently feel like they're doing this. So massive gap between almost 90 and 24% of people that are saying, I know this is important, I know this is very important, but I'm not quite feeling like we're there right now as an organization. So I'm really hoping that next year we'll see less of a gap in that statistic.
A
Where can people find this report?
C
So the report is on our website, so you can go to Memory Fox IO Ethical Storytelling. You can find the report there. It's also, you know, we have it shared in many places and we have a lot of people that are contributors to it. So you can, you can find it lots of places, but definitely on our website.
A
I love that. I'm also interested to know how social media and digital tools fit into this because of course, I teach a lot about digital marketing and digital fundraising and I think sharing online comes with its own set of challenges. Also, another tactic I've seen or read about nonprofits using AI to create images that are not real people. They're not real animals. They're not, you know, they're. They're AI generated images to go along with the stories to protect confidentiality. I just wonder how, you know, I don't know if the report touches on this, but how what your think, what your thoughts on that are and also just how can we adapt our stories for the digital world but still remain doing it ethically?
C
Yeah, there are a lot of Considerations, especially when you're thinking about anonymous storytelling, like you were mentioning, like things that we are not able to show the images or the videos of the people we serve. So what options do I have, maybe besides AI generated content? I have seen nonprofits that are using AI generated content for those things. And I think that, again, if that's in your. If that's your policy, if that's something that you're comfortable with, I think as long as your donors are aware that that is kind of how you're generating that content, you know, just so they don't feel duped, you know, and that helps with transparency, that's an okay way to go about it. We personally at Memory Fox, we don't necessarily recommend that. I don't think I'm personally there either quite yet with the AI generated stuff, but I do think there are other ways that you can tell stories anonymously that don't ever show somebody's face. So one example that comes to mind is this idea of telling the story of an object at your nonprofit that kind of represents your nonprofit. This was first submitted by Clay Buck. He actually wrote about this in the report. Yeah. So he mentioned a nonprofit, that they were a food bank. And they talked about the personification of the delivery. Food delivery truck. They spoke about the day that the food delivery truck has and all the work that it puts in going.
A
It's almost like a children's book. I love it.
C
Truly. Truly. It's a. It. It's exactly like that.
A
A Day in the Life of the Food delivery truck. I love.
C
And. And there are. There's such a great way you could even use AI to help you kind of fill in some of those and maybe make it feel more like a child's book or something like that. But, yeah, they just told this. They put a phone right on the dashboard of the delivery truck. They filmed the journey the truck took. And then they told this great story about the truck stopping for gas and what that meant in terms of how much further it could go and how many more miles it could drive and how many more people it could serve and kind of, you know, these other things like, you know, changing the tire on the truck and the effort that goes into that and what that new fresh rubber means for driving to go serve more people. Right. So I think when we are willing to get creative with storytelling, even if. Whether that means using AI for brainstorming or not, because I actually think I tend to use AI for my creative brainstorm.
A
Yes, I like it.
C
For brainstorming. Yes. Helps me get going with my creative thoughts. I think it is still a really great tool that you can just commit to being more creative and you might never have to show or talk about anyone in particular.
A
I absolutely love that idea. And now I'm thinking in terms of using like generative AI using ChatGPT typing in, you know, saying we are an agency serving xyz. Our mission is this. We have challenges because we can't share names and faces. Do you have some ideas for how we can still tell impactful stories in an ethical way? It'll probably give you 10 ideas and I'm sure five of them will be great, you know, and I. Or at least five of them. Something that you could adapt and want to pursue. I love that idea. AI for storytelling, we've. I think we've got a new like course on our hands or.
C
No, I agree.
A
New tie, a new book.
C
Like how to use it and not overuse it.
A
Right, exactly. This is how I always say this is how non profits are going to stand out in the AI sludge is with their stories. So I'm not saying have AI write all of your stories or make up stories for you, but using it to generate ideas or look at some of the stories you've told and then help you figure out who else you can ask or what are you missing? You know, where are the holes, where are the gaps? I think those are great uses of it.
C
Definitely.
A
Wow. I know. No, it's my wheels. My wheels are turning. I love it. So one last question.
C
If.
A
If I'm a very stressed out, overwhelmed non profit staff member, I'm sure you see this all the time, talk to tons of people. Multiple hats.
C
No.
A
You never met anybody wearing multiple hats. Resource strapped. I think the question that I usually get is these are fabulous ideas. You know, how can I like what is one thing I can do today to start incorporating some of this into my work?
C
Yes, I want to. My caveat when it comes to reading the ethical storytelling report because it is so dense. I want to say I don't want the amount of information to make you feel like you can't possibly do everything quote unquote, right. And therefore you're not going to do anything at all. That is not my intention of creating the report. It's definitely not our intention at Memory Fox when we're sharing the report. So if you are able to implement just two things that can really get you started today, I would definitely say make sure when you are collecting stories there is some sort of consent collection that you are going through something as simple as somebody giving you written consent where they sign something, or even an electronic checkbox where they have said, I've read your consent form. I check here. What I'm not advocating for is implied consent or verbal consent. That's for safety on both sides. That's for your storyteller as well as for your nonprofit. Potentially, there could be things that could come out that you might not want that you would not be able to say that implied consent was something that would hold up in court, for example. My second thing that I would say that you can start today is when you are going through the storytelling process, whether that's collecting videos, photos, written testimonials, and then maybe you're writing an appeal that you are surrounding that story with, make sure you are checking back into that storyteller for a final yes or a final no. So unintentionally, there might be a situation where through the editing process, you have just changed one too many things that no longer makes that person feel like that is their story still. So we want to just check back in and say, hey, are you okay with this final product before we mail it out to, you know, 10,000 people on our mailing list? Or are you okay with this video? When we added these stats around it, do you think it still represents you? If, of course, if they say no, we need to make changes. But you'll be very happy when you do get that final yes, because you'll fight. You'll have a big relief and just say, okay, I know this is all right with my storyteller.
A
Oh, I love that. Thank you so much, Carly. And where can people connect with you? I know you're active on LinkedIn.
C
I'm on LinkedIn, I'm on TikTok. And then for Memory Fox, we're on all platforms, so Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn. Yeah. So definitely find me and us there.
A
Thank you so much and thanks for all the work that you do. And I will definitely put the links to everything in the show notes, and you'll have to come back again when you release the newest report.
C
I know. I'm hoping that we'll have all improved statistics and a lot of good stuff to share. I'm sure I will.
A
I love that. Okay, thanks so much.
C
Foreign.
B
Thank you for tuning into my show and for listening all the way to the end. If you really enjoyed today's conversation, make sure to subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast app and you'll get new episodes downloaded as soon as they come out. I would love if you left me a rating or a review because then this tells other people that my podcast is worth listening to and then me and my guests can reach even more earbuds and create even more impact. So that's pretty much it. I'll be back soon with a brand new episode, but until then you can find me on Instagram. Juliacampbell77 Keep changing the world, you nonprofit unicorn.
C
Sam.
Episode: How to Tell Powerful Stories, Ethically with Carly Euler
Date: September 17, 2025
Guest: Carly Euler, Marketing Director at Memory Fox, Creator of the Ethical Storytelling Report
Host: Julia Campbell
This episode explores how nonprofits can tell compelling, effective stories that inspire action—without exploiting or diminishing the dignity of the people and communities they serve. Julia Campbell and guest expert Carly Euler discuss practical strategies, real-world examples, and new frameworks for ethical storytelling that build community, honor agency, and still achieve fundraising goals.
Carly Euler on ethical discomfort:
"There have been just a lot of ways that I've come up… with obstacles that have to do with ethical storytelling before I even really knew what that meant." (07:53, C)
Julia Campbell’s interview guidance:
"You don't want to interview people with open wounds, you want to interview people with scars." (08:13, A)
On agency and consent (Carly Euler):
"Consent is actually not in perpetuity… There should be really a time restriction on that consent form, and then we need to check back in with that storyteller." (11:18, C)
On asset framing (Julia Campbell):
"It never starts with, 'I'm from a poor district…' It usually starts with, 'My kids are passionate about art… Here's a way you can help.'" (13:24, A)
On creative anonymity (Carly Euler):
"Telling the story of an object at your nonprofit that kind of represents your nonprofit… they put a phone right on the dashboard of the delivery truck and filmed the journey the truck took." (29:38, C)
Practical first steps (Carly Euler):
"Make sure when you are collecting stories there is some sort of consent collection… What I'm not advocating for is implied consent or verbal consent." (32:40, C)
Ethical storytelling is not only possible for nonprofits but essential—to both honor the people at the heart of your mission and to build sustainable, donor-engaged communities. Starting small—gaining explicit, renewable consent and focusing on individuals’ strengths—can make a real difference. Tools and frameworks like those shared by Carly Euler are available to help, and ethical standards can be integrated into any nonprofit’s culture and communications.
As Julia says, "This is how nonprofits are going to stand out in the AI sludge—it's with their stories." (31:37, A)