Ep. 111 | How Do You Share an Impact Story in Your Ministry Fundraising Message?
You have a great impact story. Maybe you have several of them. You know these stories show what your ministry is actually accomplishing, and you know you should be sharing them with donors.
But where the heck do you put them?
If you’re speaking at a church, should you open with the story or save it until the end? If you’re speaking at a fundraising gala, how does the story fit into the rest of your message? What if you’re writing a ministry newsletter?
There are better ways to use your impact stories so they create an emotional connection instead of feeling like another piece of information dropped into your fundraising message. Here are the two approaches I recommend most often.
First, What Is an Impact Story?
When I talk about an impact story, I mean the story of one individual who has experienced some kind of transformation connected to your ministry. Maybe someone came to know Jesus. Maybe a family was in a desperate situation and is now stable. Maybe a child who was struggling is now thriving.
Whatever the situation, we’re following one person through a transformation. We see where they were, what they were facing, and what changed.
These stories are incredibly valuable for fundraising because donors get to see the actual person behind the work. So start collecting them. And if your favorite story happened several years ago, you can still use it! A powerful story doesn’t suddenly expire because it’s old.
The bigger question is how you use it.
Option #1: Start Your Fundraising Message With the Impact Story
This is probably my favorite approach.
Instead of opening your fundraising message with an explanation of your ministry, a list of statistics, or a summary of everything you’ve accomplished, start with a person.
Give us their name. Help us picture the setting. Tell us enough about their personality that we begin to care about them. Then introduce the conflict they were facing. What was happening in their life? What was the hurdle in front of them? What was at stake if nothing changed?
You want to bring your donors into that person’s experience and give them someone to root for. Walk us through what happened as they tried to overcome the problem and eventually show us the resolution. Because of their connection with your ministry, what changed?
Then you zoom out.
Now you can say, “This is why our ministry exists.”
This is where you bring in the bigger vision of your ministry. You can talk about how many families you’ve served, how many children have participated in your programs, or how many people have heard the Gospel. Those statistics now have a real person attached to them.
Your donor has already met one of those people.
One Person Helps Your Donor Understand the Bigger Number
I think ministries sometimes expect big statistics to create a bigger emotional response. If hundreds or thousands of people are experiencing a problem, surely that number should communicate how important the need is.
But numbers are hard to feel.
If you tell me that 1,000 people are facing a certain problem, I understand intellectually that it’s significant. But introduce me to one woman who is facing that problem, let me see her face, understand her personality, hear what she’s experiencing, and discover what she stands to lose—and suddenly the problem feels real.
Then when you tell me there are 999 other people like her, the statistic carries much more weight.
The individual story creates the emotional connection. The bigger picture shows the scale.
Don’t Bury the Best Part of Your Ministry Newsletter
I was recently helping a client with her ministry newsletter, and she had a beautiful impact story about a little boy. But the story was buried farther down in a longer newsletter.
She started with more of a summary of what had been happening in the ministry and how things had been growing. None of the information was bad. It was relevant, and there was a reason she wanted donors to know it.
But I told her: You’ve got to start with the story.
Especially in an email, you need to give people a reason to keep reading. If you begin with a summary of ministry growth, updates, and information, it’s incredibly easy for someone to skim a few sentences and move on.
Instead, introduce me to that little boy.
Let me care about him. Let me wonder what’s going to happen to him. Once I’m emotionally connected to his story, I’m much more interested in understanding the ministry behind it.
I used this approach again and again when I was filmmaking. Most of the films I created centered around one individual because that gave the audience someone to connect with. Then, after experiencing that person’s story, I could zoom out and show what it meant for the larger mission.
The same structure works beautifully in fundraising.
Option #2: Split Your Impact Story in Two
There’s another way I love using impact stories, especially when you’re giving a larger fundraising presentation.
Instead of telling the entire impact story at once, split it into two parts and build your ministry message between them. Think of the story almost like a sandwich around the rest of your fundraising message.
You might begin by explaining the main conflict your ministry exists to address. If you’ve listened to me talk about story structure before, you know how important conflict is. It’s the cornerstone of the story because it gives us a reason to care about what happens next.
Once you’ve introduced that larger conflict, bring in the first half of your impact story as proof.
Maybe you’ve explained a problem facing children in the community you serve. Now introduce us to one particular girl who experienced that problem. Tell us what was happening in her life, how the situation affected her, and what was at stake for her.
Her story takes the larger problem you’ve described and makes it specific.
And then?
Stop the story.
Don’t tell us how it ends yet.
Let the Story Pull Your Donor Through the Message
After introducing the first half of the story, move back into your larger fundraising message. Explain why your ministry cares about this problem and how you’re addressing it. Show your donor where they fit and what becomes possible when someone chooses to give.
This is where having a clear structure for your overall fundraising message becomes especially important. You’re leading the donor through the problem, the response of your ministry, and their opportunity to participate in the solution.
But throughout that message, you’ve left one question unanswered:
What happened to that person?
Your donor already has an emotional connection to her. They know what she was facing, but they haven’t heard the resolution yet. That unfinished story gives you a thread you can carry through the rest of the fundraising message.
Then, near the end, you come back to her.
Finish With the Transformation
Finally, your donor gets the resolution. You show them what changed in this person’s life and what happened after they connected with your ministry.
There’s something emotionally rewarding about reaching the end of a good story and finally seeing the conflict resolved. You spent the message showing donors what the problem looks like, why your ministry is responding, and what becomes possible when people give. Now they get to see the outcome through the life of someone they’ve already come to care about.
The impact story becomes proof of what you’ve just told them.
And because the resolution comes near the end of your fundraising message, you’re also finishing at one of the most emotionally powerful moments. Your donor isn’t simply hearing that their gift can make a difference. They’ve just watched what that difference can actually look like.
That can be a powerful place to invite them to act.
Use Your Impact Story Strategically
Having a great impact story is only the beginning. Where you place that story can change the way your donor experiences your entire fundraising message.
You can start with one person’s complete story and then zoom out to reveal the bigger ministry vision. Or you can introduce the first half of their story, lead donors through your fundraising message, and return to the resolution near the end.
Both approaches allow your impact story to do more than provide an encouraging ministry update. The story becomes part of the structure that keeps your donor emotionally engaged.
And this works best when the rest of your fundraising message has a clear structure too.
That’s exactly what I work on with ministry leaders through my fundraising message coaching. We take the problem your ministry addresses, the stories you have to tell, your ministry’s response, and the donor’s role and build them into a clear fundraising message using effective story structure.
If you’d like help building yours, you can learn more at irisstorytelling.com/coaching.
And if you’re a woman ministry leader who wants to connect with other women navigating fundraising and ministry leadership, I’d love to have you inside my free community at irisstorytelling.com/community.
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