Ep. 121 | Think You Don’t Have Ministry Stories? 3 Ways to Find Stories for Fundraising
You know you’re supposed to tell stories.
You’ve heard that stories connect with donors. You know they’re powerful. Maybe you’ve even sat down to write your newsletter thinking, “Okay, I need a story.”
And then… nothing.
You can’t think of one.
It feels like your ministry just doesn’t have those incredible testimonies or dramatic transformation stories everyone else seems to have.
But you probably have more stories than you realize.
The problem is that most ministry stories aren’t going to announce themselves. You have to learn how to notice them.
Here are three ways to start finding them.
1. Make finding stories part of your job
I’m sorry to add another thing to your ministry to-do list. 😂
But if you want to consistently use stories in your fundraising, you have to actually look for them.
Waiting until the day you’re supposed to write your newsletter and thinking, “Okay… what’s a story I can tell?” makes this so much harder.
Instead, start looking for stories all the time.
Train your brain to notice them.
A volunteer makes a comment about someone they’ve been working with.
A missionary tells you something that happened this week.
Someone responds differently than they normally do.
Instead of letting those moments pass, stop and think:
Is there a story here?
Then ask more questions.
Ask your staff. Ask volunteers. Ask missionaries. Especially ask the people who have direct contact with those your ministry serves.
And don’t just ask, “Do you have any good stories?”
They may say no because they’re looking for the huge transformation story too.
Ask specific questions:
Did anything happen this week that stuck with you?
Is there someone you’ve been thinking about lately?
Did you notice anything different about someone you’re working with?
Was there a moment that surprised or encouraged you?
You have to dig a little.
I’d also give yourself a goal. Maybe you want to find one story every week. If that feels unrealistic, find one every month.
Then create a story bank.
It can be a spreadsheet, a document, or even a notebook. You just need somewhere to capture these moments when you find them.
Because you WILL forget them.
And then when it’s time to write a newsletter, prepare a presentation, or share something with a donor, you’re not starting from zero.
You’ve already been collecting stories.
2. Find the ONE person who was impacted
This is where ministry storytelling can get really vague.
You had a women’s event and 100 women came.
You held a kids program and 50 kids participated.
Your organization served hundreds of families.
Those numbers can be useful. But there’s usually a stronger story hiding inside them.
Find one person.
Who was impacted?
Instead of trying to tell the story of everyone at the women’s event, find one woman whose experience helps us understand what happened.
Instead of talking generally about all the kids in your program, tell me about one child.
That’s the person whose journey we can follow.
And this doesn’t always have to be the person your ministry serves.
You could tell an impact story about someone your ministry helped.
You could tell a donor story about someone who gives and what being part of the ministry means to them.
You could even tell a personal story about something you experienced or noticed.
I usually wouldn’t make yourself the first choice because your donors want to understand the impact they’re helping create. But personal stories absolutely have a place.
Whatever type of story you’re looking for, find the human inside it.
3. Look for a small moment of change
This may be the biggest shift.
Stop waiting for the massive transformation.
We love those stories.
Someone overcomes an addiction. A family completely turns their life around. Someone gives their heart to Jesus. There’s an incredible healing.
Those stories are beautiful.
They’re also relatively rare.
Most ministry happens in much smaller moments.
Someone finally smiles.
A child participates for the first time.
Someone comes back.
A person trusts you enough to tell you something they’ve never shared before.
A parent’s response changes.
Those moments can feel insignificant when you’re living inside the ministry every day. But they’re often evidence that something is changing.
I’ve seen this myself in the kids ministry at our church.
There’s a little girl who has been very quiet and reserved. She would keep her head down. There wasn’t much eye contact or smiling.
Over the course of several weeks, I started noticing something different.
She started making eye contact.
She started smiling back at me.
Then one day as she was leaving, I told her, “I love you.”
And she said, “I love you too.”
That’s it.
There’s no dramatic ending where suddenly everything in her life changed.
But something had changed.
A child who had been completely closed off was beginning to trust, connect, and respond.
That’s a story.
And if we’re constantly waiting for the giant testimony, we can completely miss moments like that.
Start noticing what’s different
When you’re looking for ministry stories, ask yourself:
What’s different now?
Maybe the change happened slowly. Maybe you’re only noticing one small piece of it.
Write it down anyway.
Start collecting those moments even when they don’t feel big enough yet.
Over time, you’ll build a story bank full of real people and real moments that show what God is doing through your ministry.
And that story bank isn’t only useful for fundraising.
On the days when ministry feels slow and you’re wondering whether any of this is making a difference, you can look back at those stories and remember:
God is working here.
Need help putting those stories into your donor newsletters?
Finding the story is one piece. Knowing how to use it in a newsletter that people actually want to read is another.
That’s why I created my free guide, Write Newsletters That Build Donor Trust.
It walks you through five simple steps you can follow every time you sit down to write a newsletter—including how to use story, what gets people to actually open your email, and where the ask fits.
Grab it free at irisstorytelling.com/newsletter
And if you’re struggling to figure out what stories to tell, how to shape your fundraising message, or what to say to donors, that’s exactly what we can work through together in one-on-one coaching.
Work with me:
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