Emotional Storytelling

03:50 PM Jan 21, 2011

This is a guest blog post from Mark Rovner of Sea Change Strategies. Sea Change Strategies is an official partner of Salsa Labs.  Mark will be hosting a special webinar on Wednesday, January 26th about the art of Emotional Storytelling - a key tactic in being a successful organizer.

Think, quick – what’s your favorite movie?

Putting aside you French film snobs, most of you thought of a movie that was dramatic, that got your emotions going, that got you riled up.

Hollywood filmmakers – the good ones at least – have mastered the art of evoking emotions.  That’s what dramatic stories do.  And it’s not just an intellectual experience.  Our brains contain cells called mirror neurons.  When we see someone we care about going through an emotional upheaval, our mirror neurons fire – and we feel what they feel, we experience their emotional pain as if it was our own.

Those neurons fire even if intellectually we “know” the story is make believe.  That’s why we can watch the same movie over and over, and even though you know every scene and every word, you find the journey just as satisfying.

What’s that got to do with online communications or fundraising?  Everything.

We know that charitable giving is fundamentally an emotional, rather than intellectual process.  Did you know that donors get an endorphin rush after making a gift that is akin to eating chocolate or having sex?

And there is no more sure fire way to connect with someone’s emotions than through dramatic stories.  (Emphasis on the word dramatic.)

You’re nodding yes, yes I know all this.  We all know it, but then why do so many organizations tell crap stories?

The foundation of a dramatic story is…conflict.  Conflict requires a relatable protagonist, generally human, never an organization.  Maybe more important, it requires a truly sinister villain.

My favorite movie is Die Hard.  Who steals the show in that movie?  Alan Rickman, the bad guy.  What is Harry Potter without Voldemort?  Who is Dorothy without the wicked witch?

Most organizations hate conflict.  They don’t like to name names.  Or they make the “villain” so abstract that it has no emotional appeal at all: “The villain isn’t Exxon, it’s all of us who drive SUVs.”  That may be intellectually true, but it’s not the basis for a decent story.

So the next time you set out to engage your activists or donors through the power of stories, make sure you give them some ONE to cheer on, and some ONE to boo.

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