#164 | Should beneficiaries have more say in how their stories are told in our fundraising efforts?

Jess Crombie describes herself as a storytelling geek and advocates for more ethical practices in the creation and use of images of poverty. In her most recent role as Global Content Director, Jess sat on the senior leadership team at Save the Children; set up and led a large global team working across twenty-nine countries; and now, working as a consultant, is helping non-profit organizations deliver their stories powerfully and ethically. Jess also works as a senior lecturer on documentary image making and ethics at the London College of Communication.

Jess believes that nonprofit organizations need to better understand and increase their efforts to ensure that the interests of their beneficiaries are as well represented in their communications as those of their donors. In a recent and impressive Rogare publication, Jess argues that those on the receiving end are as “important as donors in providing us with the wherewithal to carry out our work."  During our conversation, Jess summed up her findings by saying that beneficiaries do have strong opinions about how they are represented in fundraising efforts; that they understood the importance of gathering their stories; and that they felt strongly about wanting to tell their own stories.

As I mentioned during the introduction, we would like to invite all our listeners to discover how the four frameworks can help your organization create an environment where fundraising can thrive. Based on insights drawn from behavioral economics, complexity science, and cognitive psychology, these four planning models offer a more holistic and human-centered perspective of fundraising rather than the reductionist and mechanical approach that originated from public relations and marketing. For more information, go to https://responsivefundraising.com/workshops

As always, we are grateful to the team at OneCause for sponsoring The Fundraising Talent Podcast.