A young girl who, in her final days, assured her mother that everyone would be alright after she was gone.
A grown man whose mental illness kept him from leaving the basement for months, and the doctor who sat at the top of the stairs, day after day, coaxing him up and into life-saving treatment.
A young man who missed the first eight years of his daughter’s life while he was in prison and is now helping others get an education so they can get off the streets.
These are the stories that raise money for nonprofits. Told from the source, authentic, human stories generate genuine empathy for the cause.
The critical issues that these stories represent – the 600,000 Americans who die from cancer each year, tens of thousands of people who suffer from OCD, and the far too many who are involved in gang violence – are too enormous for most of us to wrap our heads around, let alone our hearts.
And so we, at Teak Media, share the real stories of people’s lives to draw audiences in and help them care about others and the problems they face.
Everyone who works for Teak Media got into this business to help people and the planet. Our mission is to help nonprofits tell the stories of those they serve so others will care and contribute their time, money, or influence.
We meet with people, listen to their life experiences, and then share them with others through print, TV, radio, online, influencers and social media. This is how we help raise money for nonprofits.
However, often, in effort to protect the people they serve, nonprofit leaders make the mistake of not allowing their clients’ voices to be heard. They fear that sharing their clients’ experiences will be exploitative. They do not want to “use” people to raise money. We often hear clients advise against the “flies in the eyes” approach to storytelling, which references a popular ad that featured a young Black boy with a distended stomach who had little flies gathering in the corners of his eyes. “Poverty porn,” is what they call it, and we agree, it’s awful.
The problem is, though, that if you cannot share the stories of the people you serve, it’s really hard to generate financial contributions for the cause. Explaining that a program is “evidence based” without sharing the personal experiences of those served does nothing to make people care. In fact, using jargon often makes audiences’ eyes glaze over.
A long-standing Teak Media hero, journalist Nicholas Kristof, did a study on this very issue when he realized that New Yorkers cared more about a stranded hawk than they did about the thousands of people who were dying in Darfur. In a now legendary article he wrote for Outside Magazine, he explained in great detail how necessary it is to lead into stories through the eyes of one person.
Why? Because, according to an old adage, one death is a tragedy, and one million deaths is a statistic. People feel like they can help one girl. The don’t feel like they can help the masses. If the problem is too great, like the climate crisis for example, then people do nothing. If they feel like they can make a difference, they will take action. Speaking of the ailing climate, brilliant marketers took hold of the principle of personalizing a story to make people care when they called upon a polar bear to be a spokesperson for the cause. As a result, we can readily put a face to the horror of climate change.
At Teak, we see these principles at work constantly. But equally as important, we see how people are positively affected – even transformed — by sharing the stories of their challenges and successes with others. Giving people a platform from which to speak their truth can be a gift for the person as well as for the organization.
One mother whose child was ill with cancer told me that sharing her story with us was “cathartic.” She said that when she saw people in the market and they ask how everything is going, she felt compelled to tell them a short, positive version of the truth because, “no one really wants to hear the bad news.” She said she would feel obliged to help others feel better about her situation. She was comforting them! After speaking with us, she said she was relieved because she felt heard and she knew that by sharing her experiences, she could help others who saw her story in the media avoid some of the mistakes that lead to misdiagnosis and delayed treatment. At the Ron Burton Training Village, leaders teach their tween- and teen-aged campers to share their experiences with visitors and to ask them questions about their lives. They say that encouraging the youth to meet new people and to speak with them like equals is part of the learning and development their program provides. I really respect their approach and I smiled ear-to-ear for more than an hour when I had the opportunity to interact with dozens of vibrant and gregarious girls at a recent RBTV event. A former gang member who is part of Boston Uncornered, told me that sometimes when he feels down, he thinks of the time he shared his experiences from the stage before 400 people at the organization’s gala. Remembering himself in that light empowers him to gather strength and encourages him to keep on the path.
Protecting people is important. Not using them is even more important. But, intentions matter. When we speak with the people who benefit from our clients’ work, we treat them with respect. We feel privileged to help them share some of the most important parts of their lives with others as a way of overcoming personal obstacles and creating change for others. And we relish in their success when they go from victim to victor.
