What are some common storytelling techniques used in volunteer management?

1 Why storytelling matters

Storytelling is an effective tool for volunteer management, as it can help you attract new volunteers by highlighting the benefits and opportunities of joining your cause, retain existing volunteers by recognizing their contributions, mobilize them to take action and advocate for your cause, and educate them with relevant information and context about your work. Additionally, storytelling can help build trust and rapport with volunteers by sharing your values and culture, differentiate your organization from others, create a sense of community and belonging, and foster loyalty and commitment among your volunteers.

2 How to craft a compelling story

To craft a compelling story for your volunteers, you need to identify your audience and purpose, choose your main message and theme, select characters and plot, use the classic story structure, and add details and emotions. Who are you trying to reach? What do you want them to do or feel after hearing your story? What is the core idea or lesson that you want to convey? Who are the protagonists and antagonists of your story and what are the challenges and solutions they face? How can you hook your audience's attention, build suspense and interest, deliver a climax and resolution, and end with a call to action or a reflection? Additionally, how can you make your story more vivid, relatable, and memorable by using sensory descriptions, dialogue, metaphors, and feelings?

3 How to deliver your story effectively

In order to effectively deliver your story to your volunteers, you must consider the format and channel, tone and style, as well as the feedback and evaluation. Think about how you will present your story - is it going to be a written blog post, a video testimonial, a podcast episode, or a live presentation? Additionally, consider how you will adjust your language and voice to best suit your audience and purpose. Will it be formal or informal, humorous or serious, factual or anecdotal? Finally, evaluate the impact and outcomes of your story. Will you use surveys, interviews, testimonials, or analytics? All of these factors are necessary for successful delivery of your story to volunteers.

4 How to collect and curate stories

To collect and curate stories for your volunteer management, you need to develop some strategies. Consider creating a story bank to store and organize your stories in an easily accessible way. You can solicit stories from volunteers by using prompts, questions, templates, or incentives. Additionally, you should think about how you'll edit and polish your stories to make them more engaging and impactful. Tools, guidelines, or experts can help you refine and enhance your stories.

5 How to train and empower storytellers

To train and empower storytellers for your volunteer management, you need to provide some resources and opportunities. This includes offering workshops and coaching to help volunteers improve their storytelling skills and confidence, as well as creating a storytelling culture within your organization by creating a vision, mission, and value statement for storytelling. Additionally, you should equip and enable volunteers to tell their stories to various audiences and channels by providing platforms, tools, guidelines, or examples.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?