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Posted by Sarah Brown on 09 Apr '14
Change lives through an inspirational story
This week I have been with several inspirational organisations. The one that stands out is a charity in a sector with rapidly declining state funding which is not immediately attractive to individual donors. (for confidentiality reasons I can’t give more details)
We were talking about their challenges when I was told this tale. On the day I visited they were running a drop in session, staff arrive at 8.00am and the session starts later.
Because a queue was forming someone in the queue decided to start a list of the time people arrived so that people would be seen in the correct order. They then gave the list of 20 people to the staff who were humbled by what they saw. The first time on the list was 4.10 am – what would make you queue from 4 in the morning? I admit the only time I’ve done it was for Wimbledon centre court tickets when I was young which makes me feel really superficial now.
The story of someone waiting in the dark, the cold, the rain for help from 4am is very powerful and I think would make people donate, you almost don’t need to know what the charity does.
If you’re an organisation doing good then you need to find your equivalent powerful story about your role and importance to the people you work with. Inspire people with that story and you can achieve anything, just think of the powerful stories and what they achieved for Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King or even Churchill with his inspirational story of how the British could win even when all the facts suggested the opposite.
Tags: charity inspiration marketing