Storytelling vs. Statistics

I'm not sure what others would say about me in this regard, but I've always thought of myself as a storyteller. I'm constantly telling stories about my utter failures, about my family, or about situations that I've run into. I'm always trying to deliver the message through an experience.  At the same time, I love data. I think data can tell powerful stories. But most people aren't as enamored with data as I am.

And this is why stories are more important than statistics.

The idea of storytelling is ancient. Our earliest texts of the ancient Greeks and Romans, early religious texts of the Torah or the Bible, and even the ancient hieroglyphics of the Egyptians are all based on the concepts of stories. The most artful storyteller of all time is probably William Shakespeare. I love the scene in the movie The Prince and Me where the fictitious Prince of Denmark is explaining to the senior the hidden messages of Shakespeare as he tells his stories through sonnets. I love it in part because I never understood them either. But storytelling is consistent throughout Human history.

The reason why is that it elicits emotion. It allows someone who doesn't think about numbers all of the time to see themselves or the situation in the story you're telling. It grabs the attention at a higher level. And it certainly has more weight than a simple headline or outcome.

We need to tell more stories in philanthropy---of the people that we serve and the challenges that they have. And moreover, what our nonprofits do to help those very people in their lives. I'm not saying eliminate data. I wouldn't know what to do if we did remove the concept of data. But data can support the story much more so than the story can support the data. And there is a difference between the two.

Tell more stories and you'll gain more hearts. You'll explain the importance of the nonprofit mission more vividly. You'll give actual reasons for people to support you philanthropically. 

And that's what the data actually tells us.