Let’s do a quick thought experiment about the way we tell stories.

For this experiment, pretend you are at a nonprofit that supports explorers and scientists working in tropical rainforests. Through years of experience and testing, you know that your donors are especially responsive to making donations that keep your explorers safe from dangerous animals in the forest.

Imagine you are creating a fundraising message where the call to action is something like this: For just $18 you can supply an Explorer with Tiger Repellent Spray to keep him safe for an entire expedition. (It’s silly, but stick with me!)

For your message, you have a story to tell. It starts like this:

Fred the Explorer hiked through the jungle, searching for the Lost City. The dense undergrowth to his left rustled. Fred froze. Suddenly the undergrowth exploded into a mass of orange and black — a gigantic tiger hurtled itself Fred, snarling.

I’d say you’re off to a promising start. The story can add drama and emotional depth to your fundraising piece. It shows the problem of explorers facing tiger attacks.

What should come next in this exciting story?

Your instinct as a writer probably tells you to proceed to what happened next, including the climax of the story, and then go on to the resolution. That would be a satisfying story arc. It’s kind that most storytellers tell most of the time. It might go something like this:

Fred, acting on instinct, ducked at the last possible moment. The tiger sailed over him and somersaulted off the cliff behind Fred. Fred wiped his brow, took a deep breath and continued with his important work.

A quick, well-formed story.

But it misses the mark for fundraising.

There’s no room in this story for the donor. It might be interesting and dramatic, but it’s fully resolved.

It’s external to the reader’s life.

Fundraising stories are different from other stories: They work best when the reader can choose to be part of the story.

That’s why when you ask people to give, a resolved story can let all the air out of the tires. You may have told an emotionally satisfying story with a good traditional story arc. You also (I hope) have a compelling fundraising offer.

But emotionally, the story is finished. It’s all taken care of. No need for your compelling fundraising offer.

That’s a problem for fundraising, because emotion is where the action is. People give when their hearts are moved.

They don’t give because you told a good story. They give because they choose to be part of a story.

That’s the whole purpose of the story: To invite the donor in.

That’s the powerful thing about fundraising stories. They aren’t just stories about random other people in random situations.

They are stories the reader can choose to enter. And be part of the outcome.

That’s why you have to do something strange: Leave off the end of your story.

The story arc doesn’t “arc.” It just approaches the climax, then stops. You immediately go to a call to action. Something like this:

Fred and other Explorers face the danger of tiger attacks every day. Promising leads to the Lost City vanish in an instant when a tiger gobbles up an Explorer. For just $18 you can supply an Explorer like Fred with enough Tiger Repellent Spray to keep him safe for an entire expedition…

You might be thinking that ending your story with the tiger mid-leap messes up the story arc, you are completely right. It violates your instincts as a writer.

But you aren’t going to trash the rest of your story arc. You are going to tell it later.

And only people who donate — who choose to enter the story — get to read the whole thing! Because you’ll tell them in your thank-you letter and/or newsletter.

The conclusion of the story is even more satisfying, because the donor has become part of the story. The donor helps create the satisfying end of the story!

Fundraising isn’t just storytelling. It’s a real-life adventure for the people who choose to get involved. A choose-your-own adventure — but for real!

Every writer’s instinct you have will protest against separating the two parts of the story arc. I struggle with it every time. We all want to tell complete stories. Unfinished stories violate our sense of what a story is.

But unfinished stories raise a lot more funds. Because they move the story from a piece of information to an invitation to change the world.

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Related Blog Posts:

• How to Tell Fundraising Stories and Avoid What Makes Them Go Wrong 
• How to Tell the Donor’s Story in Your Fundraising
• 3 Ways to Amp up the Motivating Power of Your Fundraising Stories