The Nonprofit Narrative: How Stories Can Save the World authored by Dan Portnoy is one of the best introductions on how to tell your story as a For-Profit or Non-Profit organization. This might be an endorsement; I own the book in both audio and as a Kindle. The book is short, to the point and will make an impact on how you tell your organization’ story. Dan can be found at The Portnoy Media Group.
Dan is my podcast guest this week. Below is an excerpt from the podcast.
Joe Dager: Should every story have a hero and a villain?
Dan Portnoy: Classically, yes. I think the other thing that I really find is that the hero can be a non-profit but it also in more effective campaigns and probably in the next edition of the book it will be, but the hero is actually the audience, and that means the non-profit functions or the organization has to function as a mentor. So, thinking through that in story terms is that if you’re Obi-wan, you have to shepherd Luke along. You don’t know how everything’s going to go, but you do know that there’s a force, and you do know that there’s space, and there’s a big world and there’s a Darth Vader and there’s you know. You know all of these things, so you can prep your audience for the journey, and that’s really important.
I think beyond that, I think every organization is fighting something, and I think it’s really easy when you start targeting for profit terms I think there could be something that is villainized. Yes. So, I think, and that makes the story telling process a lot easier.
Joe Dager: Oh, I can just pick my competitor, “I could villainize him, can’t I?…
Listen tomorrow for the answer, it may not be what you think!
Bonus: Here’s 3 quick tips to tell a better story today.
The Nonprofit Narrative: How Stories Can Save the World
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