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We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits
708. Working Session: How to Build a Story Engine for Your Nonprofit - Amanda Green
00:19:43
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A
Hey, friend. Before we get started, we wanted to invite you into our global gathering. Four times a year, we bring the We Are For Good community together for one day, one focus. And this Impact up it's all about storytelling. Impact up story is happening on Thursday, May 14, and we'd love to have
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you there because the stories you choose to tell have the power to change everything, and we want to help you tell them better. So join us online from noon to 1:30 Central Standard Time for a free virtual session, including a keynote with storytelling phenom Afdel Aziz and a roundtable conversation with four amazing nonprofit leaders. Then that evening, in nearly 50 cities around the world, we're gathering with local meetups to keep the conversation going in person.
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You can find a meetup near you or join us virtually@weareforgood.com impactup what starts here ripples.
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Everywhere. I am all the time, every thing as a story. And if something piques your interest, there's a chance that it's going to pique somebody else's interest, too. When you stop and you really listen to your intern or your people who are out in the field or your small donors or the people who you're serving, when you start listening to them, then you'll start to understand and all of this will start to come into place. It really will.
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A
Welcome to working sessions on the We Are For Good podcast. In every session, we're tackling one essential topic and give you practical steps to take meaningful action within your mission. Today, we're bringing you the experts and playbooks to help you move forward with clarity and confidence. Let's get to work. Hey, Bea, what's happening?
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B
Well, we are back at another working session. Is this if this is one of your first times to come into We Are For Good for a Working Session, welcome. These are going to move a little bit faster. These podcast episodes were designed to present a topic and get you activated very, very quick. And wow, do we have a rock star in the house with us today, Amanda Green. Do you remember, John, that old CBS Sunday Morning segment that was everybody has a story where a reporter would.
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But I've googled it and it sounded amazing because I saw this in the blow.
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That is such a millennial answer. It's like where this reporter would flip to a random page in a phone book, then they would just show up and find something worth telling every single time. And our guest today, Amanda, believes that should have never gone away. So this working session is how to build a story engine for your nonprofit. Amanda is a journalist turned communications consultant with 20 plus years of newsroom and public relations experience. She is also founder of the in your voice Media works. And here she's just helping cause led organizations build their own internal newsrooms like the systems, the workflows and all those editorial instincts that turn scattered content into the system sustained story engine. So her take is really that content calendars and campaigns don't build momentum. If you want to use storytelling to drive real change, you need to think like a media organization. And today she's going to take our hands. Walk us through exactly what that looks like. So Amanda, welcome to the podcast. We're so glad that you're here.
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Thank you. I'm very happy to be here and super excited to go over some tips and hopefully some tools that can help people tell better stories.
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B
Okay, so let's talk about thinking like a media company. You say nonprofits that want to drive change need to think like a media organization. What does that actually mean in practice for a small team with like sort of limited bandwidth? And then I want you to kind of talk about this mindset shift or maybe set the tone for this working session with our listeners to, you know,
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really think like a media company. What that means is taking your content and making it foundational, making it something that is built into your organization from the very start. And so the biggest thing is right now, I think a lot of teams, especially those that are smaller and they have multiple people who wear multiple hats, so they kind of put content on the side and they say, I will get to Instagram when I get to Instagram. When you start thinking like a media company is when you do sit down and you decide, okay, I've got to put together a content calendar. I've got to figure out. What I'm going to post is to stop asking, what content should we post this week and start asking, what is the story and how do we work it? And then also looking at it. Instead of what stories do we need to tell? We're an animal rescue and we need food for our shelter or whatever. Instead of thinking of it like that, start putting the audience first and what kind of content, what kind of stories they want to hear from an organization like yours and then figure out, okay, why are we the people to tell that story that the audience wants to hear and then work your storytelling from there. So that same example of, oh, we're an animal rescue and we need food for our, our dogs show what happens when the dog who didn't have food has food. You really wanna just look at it and frame it from the audience's perspective.
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A
That's two things you're leading us to like that editorial judgment, knowing what are the topics that are really gonna jump off the page or stop the scroll? And so how do you develop that and have the conversations internally, what to prioritize, how does a nonprofit team really build the muscle of having the editorial judgment to make those calls?
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C
So that's part of when I say that content is foundational, it's operations, right? So audience analysis being a part of it, knowing who they are, what they need, where they are, what are they doing online, where do they hang out, what kind of questions are they asking in chat rooms or forums, or what kind of content are they responding to online? And then more importantly, what earns their trust? What do you need to say in order for them to understand and trust you? And then put together as you would in, you know, in a traditional newsroom, if you look at your newspaper or you're on a digital website and you scroll to the bottom, you'll usually find their editorial mission statement. So this is the promise that your newsroom makes to its audience. So writing that out the same way that your organization likely has a mission statement for who you serve, think of content the same way. Specifically what are you trying to do with the content that you are producing and how does it serve that audience and your company mission or your organization's mission? Put together a little bit more like of a competitive landscape. You want to see what other people in your industry are posting and you know, what works for them and what doesn't. And this doesn't have to be super formal. It can be as much as following similar like minded organizations on Instagram, something like that. But yeah, that's kind of the start of it. I think that editorial mission statement is really important. And then also putting together some other editorial guidelines that go along with that that say, okay, well, who can tell stories in our organization? Who do we trust to give us data? How do we present data and thinking of all of that stuff in advance so that when you are presented with some really great data that would make a great story, you already know what you want to do with it.
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I like that because the CTA just becomes a domino effect. It's like every single time you're training people to come back and not just read story, but engage with it to take it further. And this is a working session live. We want get people activated. Walk us through how an organization can start to build their story engine. What's your counsel on that?
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C
So one thing to do would start planning editorial meetings and have somebody from every department that you have within your organization come to that meeting. So if they work in the field or they're working with certain customers or clients that you have, or they're working the front desk, they're the first person people approach when they come into your office. All of those people should be involved in the content creation of your organization. They do not have to be content creators, but they're full of ideas. So an editorial meeting allows you to come together and it lasts about 10 minutes. Of three things that happened in your department this week, something good or maybe something bad, or a problem you solved, or something that you went home and you felt really good about, you were reminded why you do this work. That's the kind of thing that anybody who's within the organization, from your board to the person who sweeps your floors, can be involved in. And then keep all of those story ideas in a planner so that you can reference back to them when you are at that point where you're like, I don't know what stories we should tell this week. Now you've got a database full of them. And then I have a five step framework that I recommend. And this is something I've worked with solopreneurs and I have worked with large enterprise sized companies and they all can work off the same framework. So it works really for anyone, no matter how big you are or what your mission is, or any of that. Step one is really to define your beat. Who are you publishing for? Why are you the person to tell it? The next one is to work your story pipeline. How do you make sure that you never run out of things to say? And the editorial meeting can help with some of that. Also, one of the things that you would want to do to work that story pipeline is know who within your organization is in charge of producing the content. And so something that I often do is when you have a story, you have a story lead and this is the person, usually the person who brought the idea to the table. And their job is to make sure that the story gets told factually. If you're thinking of it as like a news organization, they're the reporter and they're the news gatherer. And then you have channel leads. So you can assign somebody who is your social media manager, for example, is a channel lead, but a channel lead is in charge of making sure that that piece of content gets out to a specific place. So social media is a channel. You might even have it broken down, even More than that, within your organization, it might be, well, so. And so does LinkedIn, and so. And so does Instagram. You also have things like your newsletter, other communications that go out regularly. You have impact reports. You have other things that go out as well. And all of those are pieces of content and those are all great stories to tell. And so the way that you take a story and you put it on Instagram, it's going to look a lot different than what you might write a long form piece for that you send out to, you know, your top donors or something like that. So you want to have channel leads, people who are responsible for that. And then you just make sure that everyone kind of knows what their beat is. So if you're in a small organization and you don't have a whole social media team or something like that, then you just say, you know, this person's pretty good at Instagram and that person doesn't have to be in charge of coming up with a story and managing the calendar and all of that, because you have somebody who brought the idea to the table, who did all of that. They just have to package it pretty for Instagram. So that's the. That's step two. Step three is to report and produce. So if a journalist saw your work, would they see the craft in it or would they look at it and say, well, this is just marketing. And so that is really like a question that after you've written something that you can look back on and ask yourself and say, yeah, this reads like something I would see in a newspaper or that a news organization would publish, or if it's something that's more fun than that. You know, it could even be my favorite content creator or whoever it is that you're following. But you really want to look at that and see if it's trustworthy or not by doing that as a test. And then step four is to publish and distribute. So getting the right story told at the right time in front of the right person, which is the tricky part, but you want to think about that at the beginning stage and know when you sit down to write the story, is this for Instagram? Is this something that we're going to blast out as a media alert and we're going to send it to our local news teams, know what your plan is with it from the beginning. And then step four there after it's written, is to get it out there and do it. And then the last one is to measure and adjust. So how do you know it's working? What do you do with that info. So those are kind of the five steps to look at. And if you have questions about, you know, one of the specific phases or something, I'm happy to go into more details.
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A
There's so much here that obviously we could dive into. I'm curious what your take is on community as it connects into storytelling too. Because, you know, we've found like that storytelling just happens so bi directional. All you mentioned this. All sorts of people on the team have their own perspective to give here, but certainly the communities we serve bring a different lens. What's your take on how to lean into community? Partner with them to lift the stories from their vantage point too?
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Yeah, so I want to go back to that CBS News everybody has a story segment that existed back in the early 90s and you pick somebody randomly out of the phone book, out of the white pages and you say, great, let's go tell that person's story. That's kind of the approach to storytelling within your community. What is their why? If they're a donor, it is why are they contributing? Or if it's a donor who used to give $20 a month and now they're giving 50, well, what made them want to give more? It's really looking at it from like a holistic point of view and finding where those stories are. And so again, that editorial meeting will do that. And I will say that like once you've been a journalist, and that's my background, is that I worked in TV newsrooms for about 12 years. So once you have been a journalist, you never turn that off. And so you end up going to the grocery store and you're standing in line behind somebody and you hear them talking about something that's in your community. This happened to me very recently. I texted a friend of mine who's still a producer, and I texted her and I was like, I have a story idea for you. And I got it literally because I was standing in line behind somebody in the grocery store. So you have to approach it with sort of that lens of everywhere I am all the time. Everything is a story. And if something piques your interest, there's a chance that it's going to pique somebody else's interest too. And you can start either researching it or looking for data on it, or tapping the person on the shoulder and say, hey, I just heard you say whatever you know and figure out what the story is there.
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I am so excited we are here as a sector because John, you used to remember, like when we would put together story it was like, that was something you threw to the intern who knew what to do with social media. And it was like, oh, just sit over there. It's a total afterthought. And now we realize story is the heartbeat of connection. It is the heartbeat of the reason why anybody comes back, why they give again, why they're reminded of why this work really matters, why they're a part of something much bigger. And so this notion that we don't have one singular storyteller, now we are looking at the mass. And then your storytelling becomes an anchor for a movement. And I'm wondering, Amanda, if you have, like, a set of tools that you might recommend, what would you say would be the tools that really help you cull your stories and get them out there?
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C
Yeah. So I'm going to start with something very basic, which is having a spreadsheet. And I know, like, who wants to have more spreadsheets? But your spreadsheet becomes your day planner, basically, when you have these moments and everybody within the organization can put stuff in here. And then it gets curated during your editorial meetings by whoever your point person is for that. But the spreadsheet is basically, what is the topic? Why are we the person to tell it? And then whoever puts it in there, what their opinion is of how the story should get told, and that's really it. And then when you are either your content manager or if you're getting together as a team and you're looking at that, trying to figure out what stories I need to tell this week, it is all in this spreadsheet. So you have a tab there that's your day planner. You have another tab that is here are the stories we're telling right now. The things that are done are out of production and are ready to be published, and you have a plan for where they're going to be published, when, why all of that. And then you also have a tab for everything that is in the publishing phase, essentially. So it's a spreadsheet with three tabs. Your story planner is super critical, and everybody can contribute to it. You do not have to be good at content. It is putting an idea on a page and then having a regular cadence where you're meeting and you're talking about the ideas on that page. And that way you can come together as a team. That's literally what newsrooms do every single day. Every newspaper, every magazine, every TV station, they are getting all of their minds together, sitting in one room together and saying, I like this idea. I don't like this Idea. Oh, that one's going to take too long. I don't think you have the right person for this one. So we're going to put that on a back burner or everyone getting excited about something that, you know, one person brought to the table. And, you know, we had talked before about small teams, and so I want to kind of bring it back to them, really. If you have three people within your organization that can bounce ideas off of each other, that's all you need.
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I mean, there's an entry point for everybody here. I think getting things visible in one space like that is golden. So you never are staring at a blinking cursor of like, what am I going to say today?
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Intimidating the white screen. Yes.
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Yeah, I love that idea of the bank. So, Amanda, we got to ask for a one good thing. You know how these conversations tend to wrap. Like, what's a, you know, a piece of advice or a habit or maybe a hack that could tie into this working session today that you'd leave our listeners with?
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C
Yeah. I'm going to say that it's really listening to people within your community. I know that sounds a little bit generic, but when you stop and you really listen to your intern or your people who are out in the field or your small donors or the people who you're serving, you start listening to them. Then you'll start to understand and all of this will start to come into place. It really will.
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I just think this is simple, this is tactical. This is exactly what working sessions is all about. So I know people are going to want to connect with you, Amanda. Tell us where you hang out online. Tell us about how people can connect with your company. Give us all the details.
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Yeah, so my company is in your voice Media Works, and we are in your voice media works dot com. The best way to contact me is really through LinkedIn. Just search for Amanda Green and in your voice and I'll pop up, I'm sure. And then also email me. It's Amanda in your voice Media works dot com. I do an hour free session for all nonprofits. So if you want to get going on kind of like just picking my brain, something like that, just let me know and. And I'll give you kind of some tools and stuff like that. And then from there. Yeah, that's pretty much it.
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And I would say come hang out with Amanda in the community. She is giving real time, free advice. I have seen it in office hours trying to help people really strengthen their social media and their storytelling. And I just really apprec. How you're showing up in this sector, my friend.
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C
Thank you. It really all comes back to, you know, the reason why I got into storytelling to begin with and why I became a journalist. It is because content and storytelling is a service to its audience and that's what journalism used to be. And, and I think that, you know, organizations can step in and fill the gap that's there now.
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A
Thanks for being here. Appreciate you. Hey, friend, thank you so much for joining us today. If you find yourself looking for a place to stay connected and keep learning between episodes, I hope you'll come and join us inside the We Are For Good community. Yeah, it is free. It's full of incredible nonprofit leaders like yourself, and it's now an app in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. So you can take this community with you wherever you go. Head over to we are forgood community.com to find us. We cannot wait to see you inside.