Ep. 194: The Story You’re Telling Is Costing You Funding
EPISODE 194
The Story You’re Telling Is Costing You Funding
About the Episode:
Somewhere along the way, many nonprofit leaders start carrying a version of their story that is heavier than it needs to be. A missed goal becomes proof they should be further along, a hard year becomes evidence they're behind, and what's so tricky is that this story can sound incredibly responsible, measured, even accurate, but it's still a story. And it's costing you funding.
In this episode, I introduce the concept of the wound version versus the hero's version, and why the story you're telling about your organization (to your donors, your board, your team, and yourself) changes everything about how people experience your leadership and your asks. I walk through how to identify your wound story, rewrite it as the hero's version, and why this isn't about spin or fake positivity. It's about refusing to lead from a place that weakens you.
Same facts → Different meaning → Different results.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
Why the story nonprofit leaders tell about their organization directly impacts funding
The wound version vs. the hero's version, and how to tell the difference
How a wound story leaks into donor conversations, campaign language, and board updates
Why "realistic" language often shrinks leadership and repels donors
A step-by-step process for rewriting your wound story into the hero's version
Real examples of how the same facts can be told in two completely different ways
It’s not your stories—it’s how you’re telling them. If your amazing work isn’t getting the attention (and donations) it deserves, it’s time for a messaging shift. The Brave Fundraiser’s Guide guide gives you 10 done-for-you donor prompts to make your message impossible to ignore. Get it for free here! https://christinaedwards.krtra.com/t/xKuLs6tOiPZa
Christina’s Favorite Takeaways:
“Not everything is a pie chart on an annual report.”
“How you talk about the mistakes and the milestones affects everything.”
“Every leader has two versions of the exact same moment, the hero story and the wound version.”
“Are you telling the wound version or are you telling the hero's version?”
“Leaders who go through a hard moment with honesty and that conviction to go through it, you create more, stronger, deeper, trusting relationships. Super fans are built in those moments.”
“The learnings inside a campaign are just so juicy, and so many of you are missing them because you're deciding the campaign didn't work.”
Episode Resources:
FREE Resources from Splendid Consulting:
How to Work with Christina and Splendid Consulting:
$10K in 10 Days: The SPRINT Campaign™ to Fund Q1 - Fast, Online, and Without Events or Grants
Double Your Donations - Raise More From Your Laptop Without Chasing Grants or Galas
Easy Emails For Impact™ - Turn Your Inbox into an Income Stream
Donations on Demand: Build a $5K Email Campaign System in 30 min/week
The SPRINT Method™ - Fundraise Like a Pro, 5 Figures At a Time
Connect with Christina and Splendid Consulting:
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*Links may be affiliate links which means I may earn a commission at no cost to you.
Christina Tzavaras Edwards 0:56Somewhere along the way, a lot of nonprofit leaders and fundraisers start carrying a version of the story that is heavier than it needs to be. A missed goal becomes proof they should be further along. A hard year becomes evidence they're behind. An imperfect campaign becomes something they're still explaining away long after it's over. And what's so tricky is that this story can sound incredibly responsible, incredibly true, incredibly thoughtful, measured, responsible, accurate, but it's still A story,
Unknown Speaker 1:41
and the story you repeat changes the way people experience your leadership, your mission, your donations, your asks. It changes how you speak about progress, how you invite support, how much belief is behind your ask,
Unknown Speaker 2:02
how much belief is behind your ask.
Unknown Speaker 2:24
Every leader has two versions of the same moment, the wound version and the heroes version. And that's what we're going to dig in today, because the story you're telling may be costing you funding, and this is something I've seen come up a lot lately, and it's why I wanted to dedicate this episode to this idea of your hero's story. Now we have been taught to think about the most responsible way to talk about your mission, about your work, to downplay it, to play it safe, measured, cautious, realistic, not overstate, not over promise not get ahead of ourselves. So what are nonprofit leaders and fundraisers? Do they say things like, we're still growing. We're figuring it out. You know, I'm just happy people donated. We didn't hit the goal, but that's okay. My favorite, I'm using favorite sarcastically. It's a tough year, it's a tough economy. It's a tough time for everyone. We're still figuring it out. You know, things have changed, giving us down. All of that sounds responsible, all of it may even sound again true, quote, unquote. But it's not neutral. That's not neutral. That is an interpretation. It's this idea of you think you're telling me an objective story, but it is just littered with subjective opinions. It is an interpretation, and more importantly, it is an interpret, interpretation that drains momentum. And this comes from a few places. First and foremost, pressure. Pressure. You are ambitious. If you're listening to this episode, you're ambitious. You want to be further along. You want to help more people than you currently are. You want to have a greater impact. So there's pressure in that ambition. You care deeply. You want to do what is right. You want to be excellent. So what do you do? You replay the mistakes, the missed opportunities. Maybe the funder that said Not right now, or the funder that said yes and you immediately thought, crap, I should have asked for more, the things you would do differently. Second, there's this unspoken leadership pressure to prove that you are grounded, that you are telling the truth.
Unknown Speaker 4:53
It's this level of transparency that is expected in the nonprofit world, right and nowhere really else.
Unknown Speaker 5:00
Else, right? So you have to just be to the to the down to the wire of quote, unquote, realistic, right? Realistic, not too optimistic, realistic for your board, for your donors, for your team. So what does that actually look like? That looks like you soften progress, you underestimate traction, because you want to play it safe, you make the story smaller, and then you wonder why people aren't fully leaning in.
Unknown Speaker 5:29
Now here is the real issue. You are not simply reporting facts, you are assigning meaning, and you are deciding what the moment means. And this is really, really important. If this sounds too esoteric or sounds too mindsety, you probably really need this episode, because you're probably avoiding it, right? But it's really important you are not simply reporting facts. Not everything is a pie chart on an annual report. Okay? So if you think everything you're saying is quote, unquote, objective and true and fact based. I want you to think about what is the meaning I'm assigning to those facts. You are deciding what those moments mean. You are signing what the high highs mean and the low lows mean. You are deciding what a year over year plateau means.
Unknown Speaker 6:16
It's this idea of, if you've ever heard the saying, there's math and then there's drama. We are talking about how you are conflating the math into drama, how you are making the math very, very dramatic. So most leaders, especially the thoughtful ones, tend to default to what we're calling the wound version in this episode today. Okay, so what does the wound version look and sound like the wound version looks like we should have done more. We should be further along, especially for my founders out there. This is one you're definitely thinking. We should have been further along. I should have said that differently. I should have had a different result. That campaign did not perform. Here's the thing, that is not data. That is a story you're telling and a pretty crappy one, and when you start repeating that story, it leaks everywhere. I want you to think about this idea of a cough being contagious. Okay, so if we know a cough is contagious, we can all like, agree, right? What if your wound story is like a cough, and you're coughing that wound story to donors, to sponsors, to prospects, to staffers, to board members. You cough that that wound story to your board. How do they leave the board meeting? They leave driving home going, Yeah, it's a tough time out there. Year over year. We're just lucky to scrape by, right? They're repeating your own wound story. It leaks in your emails, your donor conversations, your campaign language, your board updates, your confidence, and then their confidence and that hesitation is expensive. It's expensive in two ways. It's expensive financially. It will hurt your donations. It will hurt your funding. It is expensive. From an energetic standpoint, you're going to hear and feel more burnout from that point
Unknown Speaker 8:58
so This episode was actually inspired by several of my clients, and one in particular, and this particular leader is years in around six years of building the organization, and in a recent conversation, she let it slip out. I was like, Oh, there's the wound story, right? That belief they should be further along by now. They should be further along by now. They should have done more. By now, they should have absolutely have more major donors by now, they shouldn't have made these mistakes. The programs should be more like this and like that. Certain milestones felt hard to talk about because there was really some guilt and even some shame attached to them. And it was clear to me that this was not just like a fleeting idea, just kind of a low moment, but this was occupying more than just living in her head. It was affecting how she talked about the organization, how she presented the organization, and that is everything.
Unknown Speaker 10:00
So I stopped her. I was like, hang on. I know you didn't come for coaching about this, but we need to coach on this. Let's kind of pull this thread,
Unknown Speaker 10:17
Because how you talk about the mistakes and the milestones affects everything.
Unknown Speaker 10:23
Now
Unknown Speaker 10:25
this may be contrary to the default thinking, but every funder is not expecting you to be an A plus student. You're you're like, especially if you're under your tenure, like a startup, right? You are literally building this from scratch. So donors are Okay, y'all, we're okay. If there were some peaks and valleys, some winding things along the way, some curveballs, some plot twists. But when you don't present them and instead, you just harbor this belief, I should be further along by now, you are actually repelling, right? You're repelling more funding. So she was framing this particular organization, was framing how she talked about the progress, the milestones, and how that then inferred how she boldly, or did not boldly ask for support. Because if you're coming from this idea of like, we should be further along by now, I've made some mistakes. And you know, I just like kind of this, like this, like shrug, energy of frustration, right? How are you going to invite somebody for their best, most, most generous gift? Confidently, you're not, because you're going to be like, Dang kind of a fail at this, right?
Unknown Speaker 11:38
But then I asked her, and what she thought she was doing is telling me all the facts. And then I said, let's actually look at the facts, because this, to her, sounded like the facts, and when you actually look at the facts of it, none of this was true or very little. So there was significant growth year over year. There was refinement in programs, there was an absolute
Unknown Speaker 12:06
growth in the quality of their board members, like I'm hearing some major wins, but those wins were not coming out in her story, because it was all drama, it was all meaning, it was all interpretation, all wound story, and there's not a lot of a lot of upside for the people you serve when you stay in that loop of drama. So I want to take a moment and show you how that might show up in your life and in your organization. So as I'm going through this today, you can think to yourself, like, what do I kind of just feel like I should be further answer this. What should I be further along out by now and I'm not? Or how do I feel about my last three fundraising campaigns? So one of those two prompts will probably give you a little bit of your wound story coming up, and that's what we're going to work through
Unknown Speaker 12:55
today.
Unknown Speaker 13:12
we're going to talk about the antidote to this. Okay, this is called the hero's story. Now we're going to create your hero's version of this, not the saviorism, and make the donor the hero. That is, like old school fundraising. We don't we're not doing that, okay? We've heard so many times that that's it, right? That, like, make the donor the hero. And that gets really overdone and really weird fast. I'm talking about you, your lived experience, your life, making you the hero of your own story, not somebody else's story, your story. The hero of your own story, the version of you that chose to tell yourself, invest in yourself and expand yourself first, the version of you that is most generous, most grounded, most loving, the solid interpretation of that exact event, the version of you that you would want to be treated at, that your best friend treats you, treats you that way, right? That version, that version of your story, where you choose yourself first, is not like a spin. It's as true as this, like very, very sad Debbie Downer story, okay, and one of them has a better outcome than the other. One of them moves you towards your mission. The other moves you away to from your mission. This isn't about like, you know, a spin. This isn't about denial. We can still look objectively at something and go, Yeah, my goal was x, I raised y, I didn't make my goal. And also tell the hero story version of that. It's not fake positivity. It's the hero's version. Who are you for showing up and doing that campaign? Who are you, even though you didn't hit your
Unknown Speaker 14:49
goal? Every leader has two versions of the exact same moment, the hero story and the wound version. So here's the process of moving from a one to the other. So.
Unknown Speaker 15:00
You want to take a moment in your organization and find the thing that feels a little wobbly, a missed goal, a campaign that underperforms, maybe an anniversary or milestone like this one client, a turning point, a decision maybe you wish had gone differently, a season where you should have done more, raised more, known more, said it better, any sort of like critic that's coming out, you're going to write, literally write out the wound version. Just tell the unfiltered one. And this may be tough. This may be like, I don't want to go there, but I promise you, it's running in the background any anyway, so you may as well take 10 minutes and tell the unfiltered version. You're like, yeah, I should have negotiated a better rate, with the with the vendor for the gala. I should have asked for more money. Whatever the thing is, just write it out. Do your best to just write it out without judging it too much. So you're going to write out that, you know, pressure or disappointment, whatever that is. Then you're going to take a pause. I would actually go physically move my body between the two. Maybe go for a walk, just
Unknown Speaker 16:03
literally to signal to my brain and my body. We're going to tell a different version now and then you're going to do the hero's version of the exact same story. So we have one event that we're doing both of this exercise for and the hero's version. You're going to ask yourself a few things, what did this build.
Unknown Speaker 16:21
What did this reveal about me or my organization? What did this make possible? The thing that like, Absolutely, just what is the word like grinds my ears is the person who's like, listen, we this is another true client story. We hit our goal, but we didn't hit it in the way that I thought we would. I thought more donors over here would show up, and they didn't. So I'm telling myself, this is kind of a fail. I'm feeling pretty flat about this. So that's her wound version. Okay, so she can ask herself, okay, what did this build? Well, I'll tell you, this built the biggest campaign she had ever run online to date,
Unknown Speaker 17:03
even though she hit her goal in a different way that she thought she would. What did this make possible? This? For this one, it made possible the fact that she now has a way to fundraise online without an event, without a grant, without some extra team, without a marketing agency, she now has a new pipeline of revenue. She now knows how to do that. What did we learn faster than most organizations ever do. That's a good one. You guys. What Foundation did this create? What courage did this require? I want to give that one to you like in flashing answer that, what courage did this require? So I think about my first client that I was telling you about at the start of this episode. What courage did it take her to build her organization for over six years, six years committed to this important, incredible work. What did that require? It's the most, it's the most courage to raise nearly a million dollars for this organization, like, I'm just like, find the good, right? Find the hero. Be Your be the hero of that story. What is the result of creating that? What is the result of bringing in that funding? How has that helped the communities they serve? What momentum did this begin? Even if it was imperfect. That's another good one, because both versions are subjective, even the one you are calling facts, that one's subjective too, right? So I hope by the end of this episode you can kind of see the difference between,
Unknown Speaker 18:33
you know, I'm thinking about like taking directions. So I could take four different ways to pick my children up from school, four different ways. And I could beat myself up that the way I chose was, you know, the wrong way, and it took too long, and there was too much traffic, and that thing shouldn't have happened. Or I could decide that that was the best way that showed up at the time. I could decide that now I've tried that way, and now I know a better way. I could decide that back roads are slower and, you know, surface streets are better, right? There's 1000 ways to tell, even just the data of like picking kid up from school, it's wild, but it's really important to take some time to do this work about the things that are like needling at you the most.
Unknown Speaker 19:30
And this matters because you're already telling a story to yourself, your team, very, very importantly to your donors and your prospects. You can come back, shoulders back. And you could say, You know what, we plateaued year over year. You could make that the saddest wound story ever. Or you can say, Guess what, this was our year. The past 12 months was our year of plateau and getting our systems in place. The past 12 months was our year of plateauing.
Unknown Speaker 20:00
And getting ready for the next evolution as we scale up a new program the past year was where we brought in three incredible board members, right? And now we're ready to, like, there's 1000 ways you could tell that story that wasn't like, I'm a bad person, I failed really important to your board. So the question is, which version are you telling? Are you telling the wound version? Are you telling the hero's version? Because donors don't invest either in that, like, gray area where you're like, Well, half my story was like in this version, half my story was in the other version. Then they are confused, and they do not rally around hesitation or or confusion. They do not want to support that. They don't feel that momentum with you as the leader who is quietly apologizing for existing because give me a fortune 500 company that was perfect last year. I cannot think of one. They have iterated. They have tried, they have evaluated, they have pivoted. This is part of being in business. So it's really important to think about your donors as investors. What do they need to hear? What do they lean into? What do they need from you? They respond to that leadership and that conviction and that confidence. I want to share an idea that resonated with me the moment it happened. It was just one of those stories that, like is always on my mind when I think about founders and leaders who have had misses and how they responded and reacted. Jenny's ice cream is ice creams is a good one. So Jenny's is a higher end ice cream, where you can buy one single pint of ice cream for $12 y'all. So this is a higher end ice cream, and I remember when she had a listeria outbreak that forced a major shutdown several, many years back, and that could have been a defining wound story for her. It could have been a story of failure. It could have been a story of retreat. It could have been a story honestly, of like doors closing loss, right? But that's not how she led it. She led it as transparency, as ownership, as learning, as rebuilding, as improving. I believe I'm more resonant with her as a founder and that company because of her transparency and leadership in this. And that really matters, because even if you are going through a hard moment, leaders who go through a hard moment with honesty and that that conviction to go through it, you create more, stronger, deeper, trusting relationships. Super fans are built in those moments, so not in the polished, perfect chapter where everything is just rainbows and daisies, right? Her hero story is because of that moment. The rebuild the growth. That's her hero story, not the go quietly into the night, pretending it didn't happen. We know those, right? We've seen those online. You see those on social media where people are like, I'm just not going to say anything and it'll go away, right? No, owning it is such a cool way. It's such a strong way of handling those inflection points, deciding what the hard part means.
Speaker 1 0:00
So so this is the part where I really want you to lean in and listen, because this may be showing up and you don't even realize it, and you think you're just being honest. So I'm going to give you some examples of what you might be saying internally or externally. That is a red flag. You may be stuck in this wound story. So we only raised $18,000 but
Unknown Speaker 1:07
our goal was 25 the campaign did not perform. We tried it already. Our list is small.
Speaker 1 1:14
We do not really have any major donors yet. We are still figuring things out. Oh, I really don't like that one. We are still figuring things out. That's kind of a bummer, isn't it? It's like it's so diminishing who you are and what you've created. It's such a it's such a diminishment of your success, whether you're in year one, year 10 or year 50, of your organization. Don't say that. Don't say that. It's been kind of a hard year. We're behind. We should be further along. None of that is neutral. That's the wound version talking. And when you assign meaning in a way that shrinks your story, you're again repelling the people you most want to bring in. And when you do that, you're also training everyone around you to see you and your organization through that same lens, through the lens of like, they're just trucking along. It's like, very like, you know? It's very like, almost condescending, almost condescending. So don't do that. Don't do that. You don't want to perceive yourself that way, your organization that way, right? Don't do that. So let's look at the exact same version, but with the hero's version in practice, those same moments. How about this? We brought in 47 new donors and $18,402 in a focus campaign, and now we know how to improve as we scale. I can't believe it, $18,000 our biggest milestone to date. You can have something that is both your biggest milestone to date and also still not hit your goal and celebrate it. Did you know that this campaign showed us what messaging connected and what did not? That is valuable, the learnings inside a campaign that quote, unquote failed is are just so juicy, and so many of you are missing them because you're deciding the campaign didn't work. Instead of finding the gold, the gold is inside the campaign. What messages connected, what asks connected, and what didn't? We tested this before, and now we're coming back with a stronger strategy. Our list is growing, and people on it are engaged. Our click through rate is amazing. We are actively building a stronger donor pipeline this year. Clarified what works, what did, does not, and where our next growth is. We have built the foundation that many organizations skip, and now we get to expand from there. Same facts, different meaning, different energy, different leadership. Do you see that?
Speaker 1 3:53
And if you're thinking, I don't want to sugarcoat things good, don't you shouldn't. This isn't about pretending. This isn't about bypassing reality. This isn't about making everything sound shiny. It's about refusing to default to a story that weakens your leadership, that weakens who you are, that weakens your success. And another thought you might be having is, won't people see through that? No, they will not see through your transparency, through your commitment, through your grounded leadership. What they do feel is hesitation when you're minimizing your work, when you sound unsure, when you sound like you're just like, kind of doing a hobby on the side. Hide right when you sound and lament at how hard it is right they feel when your language quietly communicates disappointment instead of direction. Really important here. So it's really important that you decide, do I want to be a grounded, sturdy leader who's confident in where we're going and confident in where we've been. So before your next campaign, your next donor meeting, your next staff update, your next board, conversation, your next email, ask pause and ask yourself, what story am I telling about me, the leader, the fundraiser, the marketer in this moment, is it the wound version? Is it the hero's version? If it's the wound version, take 510, minutes and rewrite it, not to perform, not to impress, not to manipulate, to lead, to be the version of you you want to be. To be like, meet the best version of you. The best version of you who makes the most impact is not the one who's like, it's just so hard. I'm just so bad. The version of you that runs, let's think about Scott Harrison, 100 million dollar nonprofit, charity, water. How many times do you think he sits in front of a funder? He sits at a board meeting and sits and tells his sad wound version of a campaign. No, he is not inspiring anyone with that version. He is telling his version, his hero's version. Those are the stories that bring people in. And the result of those stories are $100 million organization in a pretty short amount of time. It's really, really important.
Speaker 1 6:54
so if this is showing up inside your campaigns, maybe you're building momentum, but you stall quietly. Maybe you don't have the tactics or strategies you need. You need to join the sprint method, because this is where we teach you how to raise five figures online without grants or raffles or galas, a true campaign in a short period of time. That's the sprint method. And inside the purpose and profit club is where we do the deeper work, where we actually do and do more than refine a single campaign, rolling your entire communications, fundraising and leadership, leadership strategy together. This is where we do the mindset work and the tactical work together, because you are trying not just to build your next fundraiser. You're building a fundraising engine, and that requires a leader who knows how to choose your hero's version and then communicate it consistently. You need both.
Unknown Speaker 8:21
you can go to splendid atl.com, forward slash start for details about both of those programs and
Speaker 1 8:27
where you're the right fit. If you're wondering, you can always reach out to me, send me a message or a DM over on LinkedIn, and I'm happy to support you and show you where I think you will see the most traction for your organization. I'll see you in the next one. Bye.