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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nStrength-Based Messaging: A Powerful Tool<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Thankfully, in recent years, new and long overdue attention has been focused on changing the way we build our donor relationships<\/a>. As new thinking continues to emerge and donor positioning shifts, ethical storytelling<\/a> is evolving, and a new messaging strategy, called strength-based messaging<\/em>, has emerged. Understanding it and employing it is essential to creating responsible fundraising messaging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Prosper Strategies<\/a>, a leading nonprofit communications firm, strength-based messaging \u201cemphasizes the strengths, opportunities and power of an individual, group, or community. It represents people positively, in a way that feels true and empowering to them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Feeding America<\/a> has done a great job guiding its network of food banks to move toward ethical storytelling<\/a> and strength-based messaging in responsible and compelling ways. These guidelines can apply to all sectors of the nonprofit landscape:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, many fundraisers are using a new rubric for the stories we tell. One that promotes community and inclusion and defines impacted populations by the agency they have within to meet and beat their challenges, not by their deficits. One that describes the donor, the organization, and the beneficiaries working as a community which, as a whole, flourishes when any one individual (or species, or disease research, or biosystem, etc.) within that community can flourish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As fundraisers, it’s an approach that can, in one small way, help improve society but also an approach that can help us build stronger, healthier donor relationships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here are a few additional resources to help you better understand ethical fundraising:<\/p>\n\n\n\n TrueSense Marketing<\/a> is an omnichannel donor marketing and fundraising agency that helps nonprofit organizations deepen relationships with their donors at every level by providing insight, analytics, innovation, performance-based creative, media support and production services. <\/p>\n\n\n\nThe benefits of strength-based messaging<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The challenges of strength-based messaging<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n5 ways to ensure your storytelling meets these criteria:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Example: A gift of $50 today can help a neighbor (not a hungry family) who faces food insecurity.<\/em>
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Example:<\/strong>, Jennifer is first a mother of 3 and a musician, who is facing cancer. (She is not a cancer patient first.)<\/em>
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Example: Bella\u2019s illness requires treatment from specialists 1,200 miles away. Like many of us would, Tom and Danna wondered how they could afford the travel costs and still care for Bella\u2019s siblings back home. <\/em>
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Example: Kids without hunger in their lives, like those now at Green Avenue Elementary, enjoy better focus at school, which leads to academic success, improved graduation rates, and more opportunities in our community and world.<\/em>
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Example: Sam came home from Afghanistan with PTSD that threatened his family, his job, and even his life. But that changed when he met Molly, a service dog your support helped train. Now, Sam is back to work, and is an active and productive member of our community in a country Sam was so proud to defend on the battlefield. <\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\nA new era in storytelling for nonprofits<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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About TrueSense<\/h2>\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.qgiv.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/truesense-marketing-logo-300x124.png\"){kind=logo}
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nAbout the Author<\/h2>\n\n\n
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