 Hello and welcome. Thank you for joining us. Another episode of The Nonprofit Show. I'm Jarrett Ransom, your nonprofit nerd, but most importantly, Sharice Floyd is with us and Sharice is the CEO of Witness My Life and here to talk to you about storytelling for your cause. So we are so grateful to have these continued shows. Thank you to Julia who created this wonderful platform and for allowing me to play alongside with Julia each and every day as the nonprofit nerd and CEO of the Raven Group. We're also extremely honored day in and day out to have the ongoing support and the trust, the backing from these amazing presenting sponsors. So thank you to Bloomerang American Nonprofit Academy, Fundraising Academy at National University, Be Generous, Your Part-Time Controller, Staffing Boutique, Nonprofit Thought Leader and the Nonprofit Nerd. We encourage each and every one of you to check out these companies because their mission is your mission. They wanna help you do more good in and around your community. Hey, if you missed any of our previous episodes or you wanna go back and listen to what Ms. Sharice is going to share with us here today, you can find us on Roku, Amazon, Fire TV, YouTube, Vimeo, as well as podcasts. So if you're a podcast listener like I am, go ahead and queue up The Nonprofit Show wherever you stream your podcast. Again, our guest today, I'm so excited to have you, CEO of Witness My Life, Sharice Floyd, welcome. Thank you, I'm excited to be here as well. Yeah, we're thrilled to have you. Tell us a little bit about yourself, Sharice, and then tell us a lot about Witness My Life if you wanna know. Well, I am Sharice. I am a former director of communications, director of marketing for nonprofits. I've been doing nonprofit marketing for over 20 years. So I was the girl who told all the stories that got everyone paid. And so I'm still doing that, in a sense. Witness My Life is a company we partner with corporations, universities and nonprofits to license our programming, women's leadership, nonprofits, storytelling, all of those things. And it really is, Witness My Life is really about helping people and individuals get noticed. And so we do that with our storytelling products and services. Fantastic, it's such a need. I was actually just talking to a funder this morning because I said I was running a little bit late but I was talking to a big funder in our community sharing the story of a client of mine. So it's so important. So today you're really gonna talk to us about the storytelling and your tip. We have many tips, but we're gonna start off with the number one thing that donors want to hear from nonprofits. So what is that number one thing? It's really very simple. They want to know why do you need them? Where do they fit in the story? I've been, as I've been doing this, as I like I said for 20 years now, it's always, what can they do? We talk at them sometimes instead of talking to them. And I'll just tell you this there, we did an annual campaign for a nonprofit. They was a domestic violence nonprofit. Everything was centered around kids. Kids where they serve more kids than adults. And so they were just used to just doing an annual appeal. We just write it, we send it out, we do whatever we want. This particular appeal, we decided to write it from the point of view of a 17 year old girl who had been in shelter, who had witnessed violence upon her mom from her dad. So we wrote it from her point of view. And in it, we were able to not only share her story, but to also show why donations were important because it was helping this young woman who was at the crux of her life, 17 years old. And that particular strain of domestic violence is one of those things where people, you're either with it or you're not. As an adult, you kind of sometimes end up blaming the adult. So we send out this appeal and then we get this letter from a donor, a letter and a check from a donor for $25,000. This was a donor who had never given more than $100. He was not on any of the major donor list. And so he sends in a check for $25,000. And his note was, now I see how my money is used. And I was like, okay. So we started to just keep doing that. And over the years, no matter what nonprofit that I've worked with or what clients that I've had, they wanna know how do they, where is their role in the story? Yeah. That is so true. And that was so impactful. I could feel it all over my body. It's like, oh, now I know where this is going. So you also talk about three stories that we should never tell. So what are these three stories, Sharice? Yes, the first one is the story where you exploit the person or the nonprofit, you exploits the person who's actually gotten the services. So that is wanting them to tell their story before they are ready to tell their story. You want their story for your benefit nonprofit versus the benefit of the client. And when a story is being shared, it should benefit both people. And I've seen so many times where stories are shared, the client is not quite healed from an experience and it is a disaster. So that's the first one. The second is the hero story. This is the story where the nonprofit does all of the work. We did this, we did that, all of that. You leave no room for the client to have got who they are the heroes of their own lives. They came to you, but they have to do the work to get to the next level. But if you set yourself up as doing all the things, you leave no room for the client to actually succeed. And then the third one is the happily ever after story. This is the story where people come to your nonprofit and then they leave where all of their dreams have come true. And we know that's not how life works. Sometimes you move people from A to 8.5, that's not, but you have fixed all the problems in the world. And so that is another story not to tell. So those three stories come off very disingenuous and inauthentic. Thank you for that. And I really wanna go back to the, let's not exploit the participant, the client, those that you serve. There's so much right now in our society about trauma informed care and sharing, having the participant share, as you said, maybe they're not ready, but that's, that's going to relive a lot of feelings, a lot of emotions. And I agree with you and I snaps for you for saying that because it's so important. So we don't want to exploit, that's the number one. We don't want to be the hero where look what we did, we, the nonprofit, we really need to give some ownership back to the client, the participant, the person that is doing the work for them for their life. And then also that happily ever after, whereas I always think of like a Disney movie. It's like, you know, life is just rainbows and roses. So those are the three stories that we should never tell. And I really think that that's very valuable as we move into, you know, the end of this year, the beginning of next, but do share with us Sharice, what does make a good story? So now you've told us the three that we should never, ever, ever, ever, ever tell, but what are the stories that make a good story that we should tell? Well, a good story really has five components and one of the main things that nonprofits do often, and don't mean to, I know they don't, is just simply state the facts of what happened. This one thing happened and this happened and this happened and this happened. And it's really just a summary of what went down. So a good story will really have five components, which will be your character, is the person, or the thing, it could be a pet, it could be whatever that we are going to care about. Who is it that we're following through the story? Then you wanna have that defining moment, that's the moment why the person showed up at your doorstep in the first place. Then you need to have the emotion. Without the emotion, it really is just stating facts and without the emotion, you don't turn on those chemicals that we need in order to make people care about the cause. Then you want to put in the right amount of details. The details are what trigger the emotion, but the details are only as important as to move the people to the next step. So if there were five people in the room when something happens, we do not need to know who all five of those people were, what they were wearing, none of that. Right. Yeah, good point. We just need enough detail to move to the next point of the story. And then the fifth is resolution. And the resolution does not mean that it's tied up with the bow. Again, we're not doing happily ever after. The resolution could be the next step of what you need me as the person reading it to do to resolve this thing. So those are the five things that most great stories have without complicating it. I just wrote those down. So for those of you that are seeing the crown on my head. So it's character, the why, emotion, details, and resolution. And I'm curious, Sharice, this is a total curve ball. Could you run us through a storyline real quick touching on those five? OMG. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. I know, right? Oh, OMG. Total role play right off the cuff. But I'm hearing the character, the why, the emotion, the details, the resolution. And I love that you said, we don't have to talk about everybody in the room, right? We're talking about the person, the animal, the, like the participant, the client, as I close my eyes and start to think, story, you know? Like that's what we're focusing on, right? Yes. And I will say this quickly. I know you did put me on the spot, so I can't. I'm like, really? But I will say this. If you think about, you know, a woman who comes in to get any kind of service, you want to set the detail of why did she come, but more importantly of the emotion that she was feeling when she decided to come. And as she's going through the service, you still want to touch on how she is changing emotionally. Every story is an internal and an external transformation. And so as long as you are doing that, you'll hit all five of those things. That is really good. And I'm going back to the, I think it was a direct mail piece or solicitation letter that you spoke about the 17 year old girl living in the domestic violence shelter and telling her story. I have a client that they use pets as animal behavior, you know, for children going through, you know, a lot of change. And they, very similarly, they had the animal tell the story. Yes. You know, as if the dog could talk, but it really helped to tell the story of the children that the, you know, the animals impacting. And it was so impactful. And I love, this was like, you know, a goldmine that you said, the person that donated to that story, and they said, now I know where my money goes. They were not on the radar for a major gift. They were not on like, you know, the top tier of donors, but they've been paying attention. They do. And if you've got, if you are in a difficult, some of us think that all of the missions are difficult, but if you are in a difficult mission where there is any kind of resistance or pushback to the type of clients that you serve, then you might want to consider changing the point of view of the stories that you tell. And the reason that you're doing that is because there is always an end for children. There's always an end for animals. If someone sees your client as a victim or as responsible for something that you need money for, then flip the point of view to get in the door. I always say kids and puppies are kryptonite. Yes. Those two, like that is just kryptonite for what makes a really good story. But we all have good stories around us. And I think too, you know, asking our program staff, asking the participants, they're the ones that can help to come up with these great stories that maybe, I typically, you know, serve in the fundraising capacity. So I don't always see that direct client care, but to get it from other people on the staff, move us into making people care. Move us into, you know, how do we get people to donate to the cause like this great example, you know, of the individual that wasn't on the major gift radar, yet they donated well above and beyond their normal $100 gift. So how do we make people care and also donate? Yeah, it's really about turning on that emotion. And you can't be afraid of it. As I mentioned, a lot of nonprofits simply state the facts. This person came, this is what they needed, this is what we did, and again, that's a case note. Really, it's not a story. So you really do need to turn on the emotion, turn on those love chemicals to move people along that continuum. And I always suggest that you treat your stories, first they're assets, they're not just something to think of beyond. They are assets that bring money and services into the nonprofit, so they should be treated that way. But think of them also like a saga that's playing out. I mean, now we just did, given Tuesday, yesterday, and a lot of the nonprofits, you send out an email, you tell a story in an email, no one's heard from you for like months. And here you go with a story that it may or may not have worked. But if you take a big thing and break it down consistently over your newsletter or in your social media, all different types of ways that you can tell these stories, it really does help people follow you and be engaged with you. And understand, we fall back on this a lot, our board members are important, I know they are, but trust me as a donor, we do not care. We do not care. We don't care, and that's the story that we continuously see, our board did this, our board did that. We don't really care about that. We want to see your mission in action or what I like to call the memoirs of your mission. And so if you think of it as you are telling a true memoir and what a memoir does, you can do these little bite-sized stories that really will engage us. And that's the emotion piece is what we need in order to get people to put that money down for you. Sharice, I'm very visual. So that's why I closed my eyes and I can think about these five elements. Yes. I'm thinking about, okay, it's a weeknight, it's a weekend, I'm sitting on my couch, I turn on my TV, probably Netflix, right? And what I see is new episode on one of my playlist. And I'm thinking if we can relate this into our stories, our sagas, our memoirs, it's almost like carry out that client's story, carry out that participant's story. And what I'm hearing, and correct me if I'm hearing it incorrectly, is you're kind of dripping the story on these multi-channels throughout a series of time instead of just complete regurgitation in one very verbose email. Is that right? That's exactly right. And this is perfect timing because we are moving into the beginning of the year. And this is the time you should sit down to do your content calendars. I know a lot of us work on that fiscal year, but this is the time to really start doing your content calendars, see what kind of stories that you have available, see what assets that you need. And based around whatever events that you have coming up, start dripping the stories along that narrative. And so if you know that you've got a gala in April, do not start the last week of March to start telling a story around the gala. If you know that you need us to buy tickets, start in January to start priming us for what we need to do. So yeah, it is like episodic to do it in that way instead of, you know, this is how we end up telling the same story over and over because we only have two good ones. Right. Right. Telling it. And I just want to call out, you know, you mentioned fiscal year and I kind of want to throw this out just as candidly as you did. I don't think our constituents care about our fiscal year, right? I mean, I thought maybe I'm the only one who thought that but you're giving the information. It's like, okay, yes, we know that's our fiscal year but that's how our budgeting is done. Our donor base, our supporters, our investors, they want to know the impact. They want to know the stories from those that they serve. And I don't think they really care if we start on July one as a new fiscal. They do not. We're basically living, we're basically humaning. So we do not keep up with the people's fiscal years. We're doing the calendar year is what humans are doing that don't work as nonprofit. And so though, you know, you've got to keep that stuff in mind that your new year may start July one but we're all going to start on January one. So get us ready for what you have coming throughout the year. I love that you mentioned the content calendar. And ironically, yesterday, our guest did as well and McCully. And so we talked about, you know, the content calendar, creating it. And I'm curious if you can talk us through when it comes to storytelling for your nonprofit, how far out do we want to create our content calendar? Is it an annual calendar that we need to populate now first January one? Or can we do, you know, Q1, 2, 3, 4 separately? Yes, I recommend that we do, that we break it down in quarters because who needs that kind of pressure to try to do an annual content calendar? Yeah, as I said yesterday, nobody has time for that. Nobody does. So yeah, we could quarterly, even 30 days would be awesome if you can make that happen. But quarterly really helps you to see and to stay focused specifically in that period of time and making sure that you have stories that are priming us for whatever is coming up. So the content calendar, as we think about it, we know what the big events are that are going to be on the calendar is usually the same events that we have every single year. You know when they are. We tend to do last minute planning. I don't know why we do that to ourselves, but we do. But if you can get yourself even 30 days ahead, it will make a huge, huge difference. And when you're thinking about storytelling, understand there are different types of stories that do different things. So your origin story, the story of how you started has a different effect than what a value story would have for a donor. Because when you are asking for money, you are bridging the gap between what you need and what that donor wants to give. And the only way that you're gonna bridge that is with a story of the impact and the value that you provide. So think of the story, if you do not have this one specific story, you want to tell the story of what happened in this world if your nonprofit did not exist. You gotta be conscious of that because until you can make me believe it, I won't care enough to give money to it. And you have to have that story perfected. So good. Now, what about milestone opportunities? So for instance, a big anniversary, how do you begin to plan telling that story? So big anniversaries, you definitely want to go through your roller decks of people, because you usually have people from all walks of life who will share it. I'm thinking about it in a gala context. It's not always, but you usually have people from all walks of life in your nonprofit. So you want to be conscious of what is the outcome, aside from money, because money is always our outcome. What is the outcome that you need? Do you need more supporters? If you're in workforce development, do you need more employers to log on? Do you need more mentors for whatever you're doing? What is the outcome? And then choose the people and the stories that will push that outcome and understanding that money will hopefully flow if you've done it well enough. But you've got to start with what the outcome is and then backtrack to who was going to tell the best story and how. And again, so we're all focused on money, always because that's what it takes to run our business. And I always like to say, let's put profit back into nonprofit because the more profit you make, the more impact you can serve. The more you can actually do in your community. So making people care and also donate to that cause is just, it's so very important. Sharice, I had no idea that you were gonna be this much fun and passion filled and I've just really enjoyed our time together. It goes by so very quickly, but I'm so grateful to have you on. With our time left, tell us a little bit about how you serve the community and through, you know, witness my life. And for those of you watching or maybe listening at the bottom, it says become the greatest story ever told. So tell us about how you serve your clients. And I know you live in North Carolina, but I'm assuming you work nationally. Is that right? I do, I do, I do. So we work with a lot of nonprofits, basically what I told you today about content marketing around thought leadership for nonprofits. If you're not in that, you need to be over the way of marketing. And we work with them around the stories that they need to tell. A lot of us are so close, we're so close to the story that we can't like take a step back and see it for what it is. And so we do a lot of work in that vein. And then we also work with women's leaders, nonprofit or not. And just, you know, this is a time where we're really wanna hear more women's voices. And it's just been an amazing, it's been amazing to be alive right now in this point in history. So, yeah. There's a lot going on. And we should say this point of her story, right? Yes, yes, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Cherise, thank you again. Please check her out. Tell us your website. How do we find your website? I am at witnessmylife.org and please connect with me at LinkedIn. I'd love to build my network there. Well, fantastic. If we're not connected, you're gonna be receiving a connection from you later or from me to you later. So again, thank you for joining us. Thanks to Julia Patrick for creating this wonderful platform and for allowing me to nerd out with these amazing rock stars like the one you just heard from here today, Cherise Floyd. We also wanna give a big round of applause and express our gratitude to our amazing presenting sponsors. So thank you to Bloomerang American Nonprofit Academy, Fundraising Academy at National University, Be Generous, Your Part-Time Controller, Staffing Boutique, Nonprofit Thought Leader and the Nonprofit Nerd. These companies are here to help you tell your story, help you make that profit so you can put it back into your nonprofit and into your community. So check them out and do check out Cherise Floyd. Amazing conversation today. I can feel the energy from you. I love it. And I've learned so much about you and the process. Again, I took notes. I have them on my little sticky notes here. And so grateful. So thank you for joining us, Cherise. Thank you. It was a blast. I appreciate it. Yeah. We'll have to have you on next year. I think we have a lot more to learn from you. So, so grateful to have you join us and grateful for all of you that joined us either live or on one of our recordings. Again, you can find our nearly 700 episodes. We have a lot of stories to tell on many streaming platforms. So thank you for joining us. Please come back and join us tomorrow. And until then, we end each and every episode by asking you to please stay well so you can do well. Thanks, Cherise. And I'll see everyone else here tomorrow.