Episode 104: Billy Joel and Poetry - The ART of Storytelling

Welcome to another edition of "Around with Randall" your weekly podcast for making your nonprofit more effective for your community. And here is your host, the CEO and Founder of Hallett Philanthropy, Randall Hallett.

Thank you hopefully, again, for joining me, Randall, here on "Around with Randall." Today we tie in probably a side of me that most people don't know. When we start talking about a concept that frankly I'm not as good at and when it comes to nonprofit work and most importantly the relationships and really painting the picture of what our nonprofits do to those that might be interested.

So let me start with this kind of a story which is kind of ironic when we get here, about something I have always kind of imagined. If you know me at all I am more of a a verbal podcast listener than anything. In terms of of my favorites are Tony Kornheiser, certainly Clark Howard. I listen to various things from NPR on finance, certainly some local radio stations, and some of their segments with interviews. I'm not a musical guy and, which is probably not all that surprising to most. And in fact, I think the, and I don't remember her name but the band teacher in fourth, sixth grade at Rockbrook Elementary was glad that I chose not to play an instrument, and actually probably encouraged it so bad so that I ended up marrying a classically trained musician. Just to try to round out the absolute I'd say rough edges, there were no edges when it comes to my music. But I've always had this kind of image of the US poet laureate and the fact that if I were ever president I would give it to someone that might cause immense challenge, might be different, might need be well, widely accepted but I think would be appropriate.

If we think about poetry we think about it in the, I think more classical terms. And yet because I'm so distant from music I think that there's poetry and I don't think anybody would disagree with this in the musical form. But I've always been enamored with Billy Joel. I don't understand the music. I can't even play a C on a piano, but it's the lyrics and he would be the one that I would think of as a great representative of American poetry, and could actually be the U.S poet laureate. His lyrics tell stories in ways that paint pictures. So one of his early classics, by 1973 or so, Piano Man just to steal a couple lyrics from the middle of the song, now John at the bar is a friend of mine he gets me my drinks for free; he's quick with a joke or a light of your smoke but there's some place that he'd rather be; he says bill I believe this is killing me as a smile ran away from his face; well I'm sure that I could be a movie star if I could get out of this place.

That's poetry. When you look at one of my favorites, Italian, Scenes from an Italian Restaurant, really it's three stories in one. He talks about the the story of, in the most upbeat kind of the third part of the story Brenda and Eddie were popular studies and king and queen of the prom; riding around with a car top down and the radio on; nobody looked any finer or was more of a hit at the Parkway Diner; we never knew we could want more than like than that out of life; surely Brenda and Eddie would know how to survive... to the historical if you go into some of his later work. When we think about we didn't start the fire which is a historical rundown from sometime after World War II to the modern day when he recorded it, just picking one verse Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac, Sputnik, Zhou Enlai, Bridge On The River Kwai, Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball, Starkweather Homicide, Children of Thalidomide.

All of these paint pictures and that's what we can learn from when we talk about today's podcast storytelling storytelling is the art of creating emotion in explaining what we do and why we do it, and I'm guilty of sometimes forgetting that maybe another way of looking at this is stats versus story. I was working and I'm working with a client where we were developing a case statement for a feasibility study that's moved into some two campaign efforts. And as I'm doing the feasibility study I'm interviewing individuals about the case statement that I helped write, and the one thing that kept coming out was where are the stories? It was all numbers, and the why, and the effect, and it was flat. It was gray it was black and white. And then shortly thereafter I had someone that I have a great deal of respect do a presentation for an organization I'm affiliated with and it got me thinking about this and how short-sighted I am because I am data driven. I'm a numbers person. But I also preach that philanthropy at the highest levels is all about emotion, impact, telling a story. And my client was hurt or harmed by that a little bit. Fortunately, that's why you do feasibility studies, because we started changing the case statement to include the stories of kids and why this particular need was going to be important to this community, in this area, and that gave it color. It gave it depth. It gave an impact.

We sometimes forget that the reason we do what we do is the people. Because we get so ingrained in the rationale, the data, the stats of why we're doing it. And so today I want to talk about storytelling, Billy Joel style. How do you take and paint the picture of the bar in Piano Man or the historical reference to about 1957 and We Didn't Start the Fire and the emotional moments of that year which, if you lived in that time you would know that Charlie Starkweather went across Nebraska and was one of the the first mass murders in Lincoln, and going out west into Wyoming. In U.S history in that way, or Little Rock with families and individuals not being allowed to go to school, in you know schools that weren't segregated, or the fact that California baseball having the Giants and the Dodgers leave the confines of New York and the emotion that was. Billy Joel paints pictures. what can we learn from the Artistry of Storytelling?

Six things that you can do to help yourself build into stories and why they're important. Number one, you need to be able to find real people with real stories. It's gonna do two things: number one not only will it heighten the emotion of what you're trying to talk about, and to articulate, and in, and to push your mission forward, it also from a philanthropic perspective, particularly if you're a an upper level leader or a gift officer, it's going to force you back into the mission, and I think that that actually long term is more powerful I think sometimes in particular because I deal in healthcare an awful lot in education, larger organizations, the fundraising philanthropy, philanthropic office is separate. They're over there and I'm talking about physically, geographically, and they become distant from the mission where things actually occur. I'll be keynoting in a conference here where that is the entire subject where I'm talking to this enormous nonprofit about how fundraising, philanthropic activity, the ability to allow others to join us in our journey isn't separate. It's a part of the process and it doesn't always mean money, volunteering, hugs, the ability to say thank you. In various ways what we know is that the closer we are to that mission moment the more we can paint the picture full of color. You have to do that with real people. Can you get close enough more often than just out, in addition to a board meeting, where we have those Mission moments? How do we as practitioners keep in touch with what's going on on the ground? We need to find those real stories and we need to find partners who do the work every day that can help feed us some of these stories so we have something to paint about.

The second thing is that you need to find ways of making it emotional, but the key to me is it's the right level of emotion. It can't be too much because then it overcomes the idea of what we're trying to accomplish, which is communicating value. So put this in context. I spoke here recently at a conference about one of my favorite subjects, which is Prince and Files 1994 study called The Seven Faces of Philanthropy, and this is important. When we talk about the right level of emotion, because it's a moving target, Prince and File, if you haven't read it, Seven Faces of Philanthropy, you can still get it, was a large academic study that talked about the various kind of segmentation of people who are philanthropic. And what comes out of it is that in each one of these categories they need and want different things. While we always want to paint the story some people want more emotion, some people truly are nuts and bolts, ROI, more business-like individuals, the communitarian as they call it. Once what's best for the community, how do you paint the picture for that versus the dynast someone who has a family history of maybe very much dollars and cents, and what's in it for lots of purposes of what we believe in, is let's say a Family Foundation. Those are different levels of emotion, so catering to the need based on how you build relationships individually or business is really important, but you have to find the right level of emotion.

Third, and this is I think evolved dramatically in the last 30 or 40 years, is how do you create visuals? It used to be before the maybe the last 15 years or so that it would be pictures, captions. Now I have iPhones that can shoot movies. Visualization is critical because the old adage a picture's worth a thousand words is true. We can get more out of what we're trying to tell and paint as the story if we use visualization in the right way, which means our proposals change. It means that the way in which we, and we'll go through this in a second, having multi-ways of communicating storytelling in various places and and kind of more integrated as approach talk about that in a minute is critical. It means changing the paradigm and how we do this.

Number four is to create both long and short form, in some cases it's small bursts and this gets into the next one I'm going to talk about which is kind of the overall integration of strategy, social media. TikTok, Instagram, short bursts. Some of it's longer. I just had a client who I worked with who were putting together a video because in their particular case they can't get the prospect donor to the to the nonprofit so they're having to use video work to take the nonprofit back to the donor, and so how do you create that visualization, and doing it in short form versus long form and a combination of writing and visual.

Number five may be the most detailed and require actually a lot of thought. But as you actually using storytelling in a marketing strategy. I've up to this point talked about proposals and and the philanthropic efforts we have kind of as a gift officer or philanthropic agent to work with Community leaders, organizations, companies, foundations, things of that nature. But it's much more than that. Think about the power of visualization. When we think about a total marketing package, when we use social media, when we use case statements, when we talk about annual reports and how they can help tell the story of the organization and the impact that it has in the community, certainly campaigns are not just static they're stories of what this overall effort can do for the particular mission that we represent. It's going to be used in terms of video, in writing testimonials, this is a much larger conversation for an organization that puts it into the marketing strategy as a part of the process.

The last is is that stories, if used effectively, can't ever really get too far from what our basic mission is in any one of those areas that I just listed, from proposals to marketing to case studies. In reports, campaigns, media post, social media posts, they're always relating back to our mission

and so you can't let the story drive the mission, the mission drives the story. And sometimes I think we forget to concentrate on, consider that mission. It doesn't mean we're against the mission, but every one of these stories, the paintings, the the colorization of what we're trying to do we should be able to see and feel that mission in each one of those stories, and if you can do that then what you know is you've painted the right kind of picture.

Storytelling is an art that partners with the science, and when used effectively brings prospects and donors into the actual daily life of what we're trying to accomplish and it adds the depth and the color to the statistics or data in ways that I sometimes forget. And what I'm hoping for is you take today and some of the tactical things we've discussed here and have a conversation about how are we telling stories. How do they not augment, data augments the story. Stories don't augment the data. Put the story at the center and build from there, and don't make the mistake I did with that case statement where I was advocating data and I just missed the story and it shortchanged in the feasibility study. And thank goodness people were honest, and thank goodness I asked. Because we'll do much better if, nonprofit will do much better because that story is now a multiple stories, are now a part of what they're trying to accomplish and it can help you as well.

Don't forget check out the blogs, post two a week, getting a lot more traffic on that we've added an RRS feed there at Hallett Philanthropy where they can come to you every Tuesday, Thursday, I think is when we post. 90 second reads, just kind of something to kind of think oh that's interesting or something I read or something I saw, cause a little bit of a thought. And if you'd like to contact me you can contact me at podcast, would love to hear about your thoughts about this podcast, others. Or if you have a suggestion on a particular topic. And don't forget forward this in the various ways in which Hallett Philanthropy pushes out "Around with Randall" the podcast on YouTube, on Spotify, on Apple, on Downcast, wherever you're getting this. Share with a friend. Leave a comment. What we do is important. Our world's a crazy place right now it's gonna get crazier and what I know is that nonprofits serve a critical role. What you do is serving a critical role in helping your nonprofit, the mission you're you're trying to color the story, you're trying to tell, serve the community in ways that are critical. Don't forget some people make things happen, some people watch things happen, then there are those who wondered what happened, and at the end of the day we are people who make things happen. We partner in our conduits for others who in the community who want to make things happen for those people and those things that are just wondering what happened, and that's a worthy way to spend a career. And I hope today and every day you feel like you're making a difference because I don't know who you are and where you're listening from but I guarantee you you are important to what's going on. Go tell that story! We'll see you next time right back here on around with Randall. Don't forget make it a great day.