Stories Spurring Synergy!

Isn’t it a bummer when a word you love becomes overused and trite in the zeitgeist, so when you are searching for the perfect description of a phenomenon, your best match feels meaningless? I experienced this with synergy. I LOVE synergy! Meaning I love the sound of the word, the look of the double Ys, and I love that it means something bigger than the sum of its parts. It so often describes the magic felt when you’re collaborating so well with someone or with a group of folks and the result surpasses your most audacious expectations. 

So when synergy became passe, one of those joke words used to mock business folks taking themselves too seriously, I took it personally. The “suits” did this to me, and they did this to synergy, which was just doing its best to describe something wonderful. We deserve this word, free of baggage, accurately describing stuff. 

Stuff like what happens when you use our Anatomy of an Ask worksheet to plot out your email campaigns, putting together all the parts for you to sum up into a meaningful invitation into investment in your organization. And yes, it can lead to a great series of emails with the potential to fund your mission. But more than that, it can open up the creative and strategic process of asking for funds to more team members to influence and give input into your campaign. 

This was one of the themes that came up on our October Lunch and Learn, being able to collect more stories about your mission in action to incorporate into end of year giving. Those real, tangible, stories that show how all of the pieces come together for progress toward the world we want to create. The examples that take your value proposition from squishy to compelling. The reason you do the work that you do. 

There was a common concern: we don’t get the stories from Program People. We tell them we need stories and they don’t have any. We say “you HAVE to have stories” and they say “I have a thousand things to do right now, please go back to fundraising.” And as a former Program Person, I remember being hesitant to engage, either worrying that my stories would end up being misrepresented or just not having the space to slow down and think about my work from someone else’s perspective.  But with the Anatomy of an Ask, Program People can see the framework and the strategy behind the ask, better understanding what you’re looking to communicate to whom and for what purpose, and better mine their own memories for examples of your mission in action. 

For the trusting you’ll use the stories well, that’s trust you have earned or will earn through ethical, values-based storytelling that honors the dignity of every person involved. And that’s your standard, so we’re all set there! 

Please keep copying the Anatomy of an Ask and using it to structure your solicitations and capture the synergy of your incredible team! Synergy reclaimed!