From Snoring to Soaring

The fine art of producing a relevant, moving and — most importantly — interesting newsletter.

July 2008 By Katya Andresen

multipage

Katya: Who’s the underdog? The nonprofit?
Kivi: No! Many nonprofits throw themselves into the middle of the story, but that’s not where they really belong. The nonprofit doesn’t come in until Act 3 and then just as a supporting actor in helping the main character overcome the obstacles. Many nonprofits want to make the story all about them or their staff, but with a few exceptions, the main character really needs to be a client, volunteer, donor or someone else involved in or affected by your work. You want the reader to relate to the story, and that’s easier to do if it is about someone who is not on your staff.

Katya: OK, got it. And the creativity plot? That sounds juicy.
Kivi: Creativity stories are those with the “aha!” moments and those “what if we … ” stories that work out in the end. For a good creativity plot, you need a well-understood problem and a standard response that just doesn’t work. Again, use the people around you — clients, volunteers, donors — to explain the problem and inadequate solution. Then you talk about the new approach that your nonprofit or someone affiliated with your nonprofit is trying — and test runs and theories are OK here. It doesn’t need to be a completely well-thought-out and fully tested solution. Then you close with a vision of a new reality and how the original problem would be solved.

Katya: Who in the nonprofit world has aced a creativity plot?
Kivi: I love the Heifer International founder’s story. The founder, Dan West, was ladling out milk rations to hungry children when he thought, “These children don’t need a cup — they need a cow.” From there, the whole idea of providing livestock to poor families was born. The families not only get livestock to provide food and income for themselves, but when their cows or goats have babies, they pass them on to other families in need, continuing the cycle of lifting families out of hunger and poverty.

Katya: And last, the connection plot?
Kivi: This one is a little harder to pull off without sounding sappy or forced, but once again, with the right elements, it’s easy. These are the bridging-the-gap stories and “big meaning in small events” stories. Start with a small, specific situation or event, and then look for the larger connection to the greater human experience. These stories usually have a little surprise or epiphany in them that really drives the point home. You’ll see connections between the people in the stories and also between the storyteller and the reader. Interplast’s blog (www.interplast.org/action/blog.html) has some great connection stories about the doctors who are correcting birth defects in developing nations. FS

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