Telling your Nonprofit Story
December 1 (5:30-7:30pm), Hilton Garden Inn, 1032 South Street, Lenox/Pittsfield
For millennia, storytelling has been the thread binding disparate cultures, locales, and individuals together. At its root, storytelling stands to be a great equalizer: stories not only entertain and educate, but they also increase understanding and build empathy — all of which are instrumental when looking to raise awareness about YOUR nonprofit (from its mission, programs, and individuals served to volunteers, community impact, and bottom line).
In this workshop, we will dive into the basics of impactful storytelling, at first painting broad strokes about the various ways in which storytelling can engage audiences and further impact before honing in on the reciprocal relationship between micro and macro elements of storytelling.
At the end of this workshop, you’ll be able to:
- IDENTIFY the tenets of a compelling story and combine them into a cohesive whole.
- DIVERSIFY the meaning of your message and the voices delivering it.
- CREATE momentum in not only telling your organization’s story but also delivering it to both broad and specific audiences.
- HARNESS the power of a single story used across multiple platforms (from annual appeals and donor updates to email blasts and social media posts).
Join in the fun of collaborating from a common (nonprofit) platform to learn tips and tricks for telling YOUR organization’s story — an investment that stands to create residual ripples among your target audience, new and old.
About Hannah Van Sickle
Hannah Van Sickle is an educator by training who spent a decade teaching English
language and literature to high school students at public and private schools across New England. Upon her departure from the classroom, Hannah spent another decade providing one-on-one support to students as an academic tutor and writing coach before turning her attention to freelance writing and storytelling six years ago. She earned her BA in English Writing and Fine Arts from St. Lawrence University and holds an MALS from Wesleyan University and keeps one foot in the proverbial classroom door through her work with rising high school seniors on the crafting of their college essays.
Hannah currently lives and works in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts where she is raising a pair of teenagers on the very land where she grew up. She is a regular features contributor to The Berkshire Edge, whose work has appeared at SheKnows, Business Insider, Refinery 29, Modern Loss as well as myriad other regional and national print and online publications. When she is not writing, Hannah enjoys cooking, baking, listening to audiobooks and exploring new places with her daughters who are animal-loving vegetarians with a shared passion for travel.