Fundraising Strategy: what do leaders need to do? Blog 3 – the importance of storytelling

This blog series is based on a session I presented at Fundraising Everywhere’s Charity Leadership Festival alongside Desiree D’Souza, Executive Director of Social Innovation at See Ability. In that session, available in full from Fundraising Everywhere here – and so also in this blog series, we look at what fundraising leaders and the leadership team across charities need to do to develop and implement their organisation’s fundraising strategy successfully. We consider key issues such as how to get buy in, mitigating risk, and the importance of storytelling. We also consider the importance of focusing on team wellbeing, how to focus on the bigger fundraising picture and think about the time when you will pass the fundraising baton on to your successors. The first blog, on first principles for fundraising strategy leadership is here. The second blog, on leadership in uncertain times, is here. Desiree, what kind of strategic difference does storytelling make and how do you incorporate it into your strategy as a leader? For me, storytelling is everything. It's a big part of why I love working at SeeAbility because all of us, all of our colleagues believe in it too. From a strategic position, it’s critical. I read Charity Giving reports and see that some of the most popular causes for donations and partnerships remain consistently at the top of these lists. And there are also new and pressing causes that are getting a lot of media attention - rightly so,