Your donors may be willing to give more.
The problem is, donors have to care first.
Your donor may understand exactly what your organization does and still do nothing.
Stories That Raise Money shows you how to create fundraising messages, conversations, and stories that make donors care, give, and give again.
This book helps solve three frustrating fundraising problems.
You’re writing an appeal. Drafting an email. Preparing for a major donor conversation. Planning what to say at an event.
But you’re still wondering:
Will this actually make someone care enough to donate?
If you’ve had that feeling, Stories That Raise Money was written for you.
- Get more donors to care enough to give.
A donor can understand your work and still do nothing. You’ll learn how to find and tell stories that make the need feel real and give people a reason to want to help. - Stop making the ask do all the work.
When the story creates caring and the offer shows what the donor’s gift can do, asking for money feels much more natural. You’ll learn how to build the story, shape the offer, and make the ask so the whole message works together. - Know what to fix before you put a message in front of a donor.
Story. Offer. Ask. gives you a simple way to look at an appeal, email, event talk, video, or major donor conversation and see what’s missing.
And that’s just the beginning.
Inside Stories That Raise Money, you’ll also discover:
- Why some true stories still fail to make donors care.
- The eight different kinds of fundraising stories you need, and when to use each one.
- How to find the small moment in a story that donors actually remember.
- How to get better stories from your staff without asking, “Do you have any good stories?”
- What to do when privacy or sensitivity keeps you from using the obvious story.
- A simple way to look at almost any fundraising message and see what may be missing.
And you can use what you learn almost everywhere you raise money.
Appeals. Emails. Major donor conversations. Donor reports. Videos. Events. Even the speech your executive director gives before asking people to give.
The same Story. Offer. Ask. thinking helps you decide what the donor needs to care about and what you want them to do next.
I read this book while preparing to write a fundraising campaign, and it immediately got my brain flowing. It helped me think more clearly about the story I needed to find, the offer I needed to shape, and the ask I needed to make.
Sarah Curry //Beloved Fundraising Co.
I started underlining on page 10. I was still at it on page 310. If you’ve ever wondered why some fundraising stories inspire donors to give while others fall flat, this book holds the answers — plus principles you can put to work today. It is so, so, SO good.
Lisa Sargent // fundraising copywriter and author of Thankology
This book teaches one skill that improves almost everything you do to raise money. The same storytelling skill that strengthens your letters strengthens your emails, videos, galas, major donor conversations, reports, and social media.
Kimberlee Casavan // Copper River Watershed Project
I made more than a book.
For this launch, you can choose how much help you want.
You can get the book, add tools and training, or even work with me through December 31.
These special launch packages are available through September 30.
Watch the video and I’ll show you what comes with each package.
Choose How Much Help You Want
Start with the book. Get the complete toolkit. Add a year of fundraising training. Or
bring Josh and me onto your team through December 31.
Each package comes with a 30 Day Money Back Guarantee.
For full details on each package, scroll down.
LEARN IT
Package 1
Book Plus
$
30
PUT IT TO WORK
Package 2
Story toolkit
$
99
KEEP GETTING BETTER
Package 3
NPSC Membership
$
295
DO IT WITH US
Package 4
Year-End Handled.
$
3800
Or four payments of $995
Here's what each package includes.
Each package gives you a different level of help, from the book, to the toolkit, to year-round support, to hands-on year-end help.
Package 1: Book Plus
Book: Stories That Raise Money
Why I wrote this book
I’m Chris Davenport, author of Stories That Raise Money and founder of the Nonprofit Storytelling Conference.
For nearly 20 years, I’ve worked with fundraisers and watched the same problems come up again and again.
Good organizations send fundraising messages that are clear, accurate, and important. But sometimes the message still feels flat. The donor understands the need, but they don’t care enough to act.
I also watched fundraisers put enormous pressure on the ask. They worried about the words, the amount, and how many times they should ask.
I believe something important has to happen before the ask.
The donor has to care first.
That thinking eventually became Story. Offer. Ask. And this book gives you a practical way to use it in your own fundraising.
Inside the book, you’ll learn how to:
Make your stories stronger
- How to recognize the moments your organization is probably walking
- Why some fundraising messages feel important but somehow never become emotionally important to the donor.
- How the same story can create completely different emotions depending on the way you frame it.
- How to build emotion into a story instead of hoping the donor happens to feel something.
- Why one tiny detail can sometimes do more emotional work than an entire paragraph.
- How to use real dialogue so the donor feels like they’re standing inside the moment.
- Why many nonprofit stories read more like summaries than stories, and how to fix that.
- How to balance emotion and information so your message doesn’t feel cold or overdone.
Find and use better stories
- How to ask someone to share their story without making them feel used or exposed.
- What to do when privacy, timing, or sensitivity keeps you from using the obvious story.
- How to tell a compelling fundraising story when the thing you’re trying to protect or help isn’t a person.
Turn caring into giving
- Why vague phrases like “support our work” make giving harder than it needs to be.
- How to make a direct ask without sounding pushy or apologetic.
- A simple way to look at almost any appeal, email, video, event talk, or donor message and quickly see what may be missing.
Plus practical examples, interview guides, story-finding tools, message fixes, and plenty of examples you can use in the fundraising you’re already doing.
The goal is to help you see fundraising differently, so you can help donors care, give, and feel glad they did.
Story Offer Ask Map
The Story Offer Ask Map takes the big ideas in the book and puts them on one page you can use while you work.
Start with your donor asking, “Why should I pay attention?”
Then work through three steps:
Story: Give them someone and a moment to care about.
Offer: Show them what their gift will actually do.
Ask: Make it clear what you want them to do next.
The Map gives you prompts for each step, space to write your own answers, and quick warnings that help you spot what is missing.
Keep it beside you while you write your next appeal, email, or fundraising message.
Field Guide: Getting Permission
Once you know how to tell a story that makes donors care, you need permission to actually use it.
Getting Permission helps you handle that part well.
You’ll learn how to ask someone to share their story, what to explain before they say yes, and what to do when they say no or only agree to part of it.
The field guide also includes ready-to-use Story Permission and Release forms, including a form for minors, plus a consent log to help you keep track of what you can and cannot use.
You’ll also get additional permission forms online that you can download, customize, and put to work in your organization.
If you don't find the book and
these tools incredibly helpful,
return them within 30 days
for a full refund.
Package 2: Story Toolkit
Includes the book and everything else in Package #1
Field Guide: Getting Your Team to See Stories
A lot of fundraisers think they don’t have enough good stories...but they do have good stories.
Your team has the stories. You’re just not getting them.
Every day, staff see moments that could make a donor care. But when you ask them to “send you a good story,” most have no idea what you mean.
Getting Your Team to See Stories fixes that in one 20-minute staff meeting.
You get the exact agenda, script, meeting sheet, staff handout, and follow-up email.
Your staff don’t have to become writers. They don’t have to fill out long forms. When they spot something, they send you a name and one sentence.
The result: more good stories that help donors care and give.
Field Guide: Getting the Story
Never interviewed someone for a fundraising story before? Getting the Story walks you through the whole process, from finding the right person to walking away with a story you can actually use.
You’ll learn who to talk to, how to ask them, how long to schedule, how to set up the room, what questions to ask, and what to do when the conversation gets awkward or goes off track.
You can even bring the guide into the interview with you. It includes prep sheets, interview questions, prompts, and a capture sheet for saving the best moments afterward.
You don’t need interviewing experience. You don’t need to know the perfect questions.
Just follow the process and come away with real moments and details that help donors care.
Field Guide: Before You Ask
You finish the fundraising message, read it again, and still wonder, “Is this actually good enough?”
Maybe it’s an appeal. An email. A social post. A giving page. A major donor meeting. Or the two minutes you have from a gala stage.
Before You Ask gives you a way to check it before your donor ever sees or hears it.
In about 20 minutes, you’ll run three checks:
Does the story make someone care?
Can they see what their gift will do?
Is the ask clear enough to act on?
The guide shows you what’s broken and what to fix first.
You’ll also get a one-page check you can use again and again.
The result: less guessing before you ask, and more donors who actually give.
Story Bank
Fundraisers have struggled for years with the same questions:
Where do we keep our stories? How do we organize them? And what should we write down when we find one?
The Story Bank was built to answer all three.
This isn’t an ordinary spreadsheet for storing names and notes. It’s built around the storytelling framework in Stories That Raise Money, so it helps you capture the pieces that make a story useful for fundraising.
The Story Bank also tracks how ready each story is, whether you have permission to use it, and even tells you what piece is missing and what question to ask next.
The result: one place to keep your stories and a better way to turn them into fundraising.
Field Guide: Keeping What You Collect
A Story Bank only helps if people actually use it.
Keeping What You Collect shows you how to take the Story Bank spreadsheet and make it work inside your organization.
You’ll learn how to set it up, what belongs in each column, who should have access, how to get stories into it, and how to find the right story when you need one.
It also shows you how to keep the Bank alive with about 10 minutes a week, track permission, spot missing story pieces, and filter your stories by what you need right now.
There’s even a paper running log for those moments when a story shows up in a hallway, at a site visit, or anywhere you can’t open the spreadsheet.
The result: your best stories, the ones most likely to make donors care, are easy to find whenever you need them.
If you don't find the book and
these tools incredibly helpful,
return them within 30 days
for a full refund.
Package 3: NPSC Membership
Includes the book and everything else in Packages 1 and 2
Nonprofit Storytelling Conference Membership
Fundraising never gives you just one problem at a time.
You may be writing an appeal today, trying to get a major donor meeting next week, planning an event next month, and wondering what you’re going to do for year-end.
And every time something new lands on your desk, you have to figure out what to do.
The NPSC Membership gives you one place to turn, with 12 full months of access to practical fundraising training, tools, and examples you can use when you’re working on the fundraising that is in front of you right now.
Need to write a better appeal? You’ll find training, examples, and tools to help you do it.
Planning year-end? You can work through your story, emails, campaign calendar, and Story. Offer. Ask.
Trying to build stronger major donor relationships? Learn how to identify your best prospects, plan your next contact, build confidence, and make stronger asks.
You’ll also find help with fundraising events, donor reporting, storytelling, and planning your entire fundraising year so every campaign doesn’t feel like you’re starting over.
And when you’re wondering, “What do donors actually think about this?” you can hear directly from donors themselves. We’ve asked them what makes them give, what turns them off, how they decide how much to give, and how they want nonprofits to communicate with them.
You’ll also get access to Movie Mondays, a searchable library of more than 275 conversations with fundraisers, executive directors, board members, donors, and nonprofit professionals. Chances are, somebody has already faced the problem sitting on your desk.
Members also save $200 on Nonprofit Storytelling Conference tickets and get early access to registration.
The result: when you get stuck, you have somewhere to go, something useful to try, and a better chance of getting the fundraising out the door and bringing in more money.
If you don't find the book and these
tools incredibly helpful, return them
within 30 days for a full refund.
Package 4: Year-End, Handled.
Includes the book and everything else in Packages 1, 2, and 3
Bring Chris & Josh
onto Your Team
Year-End, Handled. Create your best Year-End campaign.
Your year-end campaign is going to go out.
The question is:
“Is this really the best we can send?”
That question gets harder to answer after you’ve read the appeal twelve times, rewritten the email again, and stared at the giving page until you can’t see what’s wrong anymore.
Year-End, Handled gives you four months of Nonprofit Storytelling Pro, focused on helping you build and improve the fundraising that matters most between now and December 31.
Chris Davenport and Josh Alcorn work alongside you on your actual fundraising.
Bring us a blank page, a rough idea, or a nearly finished campaign. We’ll help you find the story, shape the offer, strengthen the ask, write and review your appeals and emails, improve your giving page, and decide which major donors to contact, what to talk with them about, and what to ask them to give.
You’ll have live access to us throughout the week for reviews, strategy, writing time, and help when you get stuck.
There’s no course to finish and no curriculum to fall behind on.
If your appeal needs work, bring the appeal.
If you don’t know what story to use, we’ll help you find it.
If the offer feels weak, we’ll work on the offer.
If you’re nervous about a major donor ask, bring that too.
And year-end won’t be the only thing on your desk. If you’re working on a donor email, thank-you letter, event message, major donor note, or another piece of fundraising, we can help with that as well.
By December 31, the goal is simple: your fundraising is written, reviewed, sent, and working as hard as it can to bring in money.
Here’s what your colleagues say about Nonprofit Storytelling Pro and working with Chris and Josh
We followed Chris and Josh's advice and met our goal. In fact, we more than tripled, if not quadrupled, what the same campaign did last year.
Jenny Darlington-Person // Executive Director, Arts Council of Placer County
I followed the process, trusted the feedback, and it worked. The appeal had a monumental response. We got more checks, more forms back, gifts from people who hadn't given in years, and increased gifts from current donors.
Janet Kleyn // President & CEO, Agape Villages Foster Family Agency
Pro changed the way we approach fundraising. Before, every appeal felt like we were starting from scratch. Now our fundraising is easier, clearer, and more focused. We have a purpose behind what we're doing, a structure we can follow, and much more confidence. We don't have to reinvent the wheel every time we write an appeal.
Eric Steigerwald // Senior Director of Marketing & Program Development, Bring Magic to Kids in Hospitals
You don’t have to reach December wondering what you should have changed after the results are in. You can have Chris and Josh looking at the work before your donors do.
Bring Chris & Josh Onto Your Team
Have a question or want to talk with us first? Click here
If you don't find the book, the tools, and
Chris & Josh incredibly helpful, let us
know within 30 days for a full refund.
Here’s What Fundraisers Are Saying About Stories That Raise Money
This book is designed to help you do more than understand storytelling.
It helps you look at the fundraising sitting on your desk and know what to do differently.
You’ll see how to make your stories stronger, your offers clearer, and your asks easier for donors to respond to.
Early readers repeatedly described the book as practical, clear, easy to use, and filled with ideas they could put to work right away.
Here’s what fundraisers, nonprofit leaders, and fundraising experts are saying about Stories That Raise Money:
This is really well done. It’s practical, useful, and full of ideas I haven’t heard anywhere else. I’ll be telling people to read it.
Jeff Jackson // Pioneer Bible Translators
This book fills a missing gap. It turns storytelling from a vague fundraising buzzword into a real how-to for helping donors care.
Samantha Swaim // Swaim Strategies
This is powerful, useful, straightforward, usable right now, and easy to understand. It did not feel like a textbook. It felt more like a toolkit.
Jeff Bauknecht // Museum of Flight
Most fundraising books feel like they’re written for someone with a big team, a big office, and a big budget. This one doesn’t. It feels like it was written for the vast majority of people actually doing fundraising.
Dan Hanley //Altrui Consulting
A lot of fundraising books don't actually help you do the work. This one does. Step by step, with real examples, Chris shows you how to find the stories already sitting in front of you and tell them so donors actually respond.
Marc A. Pitman // Concord Leadership Group LLC
Fundraising books are usually all formula or all feeling. Chris gives you both. He takes the heart of fundraising and gives it structure, showing you how to turn caring into a story, a story into an offer, and an offer into a clear ask.
Danielle Wallace // GrowBetter Fundraising
Reading this feels like having a coach sitting next to you. It doesn't just explain storytelling. It helps you see what's working, what's missing, and what to do next.
Donna Swaffar //United Way Kaw Valley
Marketers should read it. Fundraisers should read it. I wish every Executive Director would read it.
Sherry Manschot // Western DuPage Special Recreation Association
This book gives clear action steps. I finished it and immediately had my entire team start reading it.
Debbie Harvey// Holistic Haitian Alliance
Choose the Level of Help That’s Right for You
You’ve seen how Stories That Raise Money can help you find better stories, make donors care, create clearer offers, and make stronger asks.
You’ve also seen the tools and support we’ve built to help you actually put those ideas to work.
Now choose how much help you want.
Start with the book. Add the complete Story Toolkit. Get a full year of NPSC Membership. Or bring Chris and Josh onto your team through the end of the year.
Pick the package that fits where you are right now, and let’s help more of your donors care enough to give.
LEARN IT
Package 1
Book Plus
$
30
PUT IT TO WORK
Package 2
Story toolkit
$
99
KEEP GETTING BETTER
Package 3
NPSC Membership
$
295
DO IT WITH US
Package 4
Year-End Handled.
$
3800
Or four payments of $995