How do you write a success story that showcases your organization's impact?

1 Define your goal and audience

Before you start writing, you need to have a clear goal and audience for your success story. What do you want to achieve with your story? What message do you want to convey? Who do you want to reach and influence? Your goal and audience will guide your tone, style, and content of your story. For example, if your goal is to persuade potential donors to support your cause, you might want to emphasize the urgency, need, and impact of your work. If your audience is your existing supporters, you might want to thank them, update them, and inspire them to continue their involvement.

2 Choose a relevant and specific topic

Your success story should focus on a relevant and specific topic that showcases your organization's impact. It could be a project, a program, a campaign, a partnership, or an achievement that illustrates your mission, vision, and values. Avoid being too broad or vague, as this will dilute your message and confuse your readers. Instead, choose a topic that is concrete, measurable, and meaningful. For example, instead of writing about your organization's overall work on environmental issues, you could write about a specific initiative that reduced plastic waste in a community.

3 Use the STAR framework

The STAR method is a useful framework to structure your success story, helping you present it in a logical and coherent way while highlighting your organization's role and contribution. Applying the STAR framework to your success story involves describing the context and background of the topic, explaining the goal and objective of your organization, showing the activities and actions taken, and highlighting the outcomes and impacts. For the Situation, you should explain the problem or challenge addressed, its scope and scale, and how it affected people or the environment. For the Task, you should explain your strategy or approach, how you planned and prepared for your intervention. For Actions, you need to show what resources, tools, or methods were used to implement your plan, as well as how any obstacles or difficulties were overcome. Finally, for Result, you should highlight what was accomplished or improved and how it benefited people or the environment involved.

4 Tell a story with emotion and evidence

A success story is not just a report or a summary of facts and figures; it is a narrative that captures the imagination of your readers. To tell a compelling story with emotion and evidence, you need to use both qualitative and quantitative data, as well as personal and professional perspectives. For example, include quotes, testimonials, or anecdotes from the people or communities that your organization helped or worked with to add a human touch and personal voice. Additionally, use numbers, statistics, or indicators to support your claims and show your progress and achievements. Moreover, incorporate photos, videos, or graphics to illustrate your story and make it more visually appealing. By doing this, you will be able to demonstrate the before and after of your intervention as well as the real-life impact of your work.

5 Edit and polish your story

Once your success story is written, it needs to be edited and polished to ensure it is clear, concise, and free of errors. Grammarly or Hemingway can be utilized to check grammar, spelling, punctuation, and formatting. Additionally, make sure the tone, style, and voice are consistent and appropriate for your goal and audience. Active voice, simple words, and short sentences should be used to make your story easy to read and understand. To further refine your story, review the content, structure, flow, message, impact, and call to action. Ensure they are relevant, specific, coherent, clear, compelling, and engaging. A catchy title with a strong introduction and powerful conclusion can help hook readers and inspire them to take action. Utilize transitions, headings, and bullet points to organize the story and guide readers.

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?