Thank you again to everyone who joined us for our first Catalyst session. It was wonderful to bring this group together and begin what we hope will be a meaningful year of learning and building stronger storytelling habits across your organizations.

More than 110 organizations applied for just 25 spots in this first cohort, and we are so grateful to have each of you here. We also see this group as an important partner in helping us learn what works best for nonprofits that have meaningful stories to tell, but limited time and resources to tell them.

The Big Idea

The main takeaway from our kickoff was simple: your organization is already surrounded by stories worth sharing.

You do not need to manufacture those stories or create highly polished videos every time. The opportunity is to get better at noticing the meaningful moments already happening around you, capturing them consistently, and making them easier to use when your team needs them.

We started with two exercises: choosing one photo that best represents your organization and describing your mission in just six words. Both were meant to help us move beyond program descriptions and think more clearly about the human impact behind the work.

Storytelling Helps People See the Impact

Statistics and outcomes are important, but stories help people understand what those numbers actually mean.

A donor can read that families were housed, students were supported, scholarships were awarded, or volunteers gave thousands of hours. But seeing a person receive the keys to a home, hearing a student describe what an opportunity meant to them, or watching a volunteer talk about what they experienced makes the impact much more tangible.

That was the core lesson from the video examples we reviewed: effective storytelling is less about production quality and more about connection.

Story Ideas to Consider

We looked at several different ways nonprofits can use video and stories throughout the year. These included fundraising event videos, Giving Tuesday stories, donor thank-yous, donor testimonials, year-in-review videos, volunteer stories, scholarship or program outcome stories, and short recurring “mission moment” updates.

You do not need to tackle all of these. We encourage you to choose one idea that feels realistic for your organization and begin there.

One of our favorite examples was the simple “Monday Minute” concept: a short, informal video sharing something meaningful that happened in the community that week. These kinds of updates do not need to be scripted or highly edited, and over time they can help supporters feel much closer to the work.

Keep Ethical Storytelling at the Center

As we collect more stories, it is important that we do so thoughtfully.

Whenever possible, let people tell their stories in their own voices. Be clear about how their story, image, or video may be used. Give people choices about how they participate, and avoid reducing someone to the most difficult part of their experience.

A useful question to keep in mind is: Would I feel comfortable showing this finished story to the person whose story it is?

We will spend more time on ethical storytelling throughout the program.

What We’re Building Together

The goal of Catalyst is bigger than creating a few good stories over the next year. We want to help you build a repeatable system for storytelling inside your organization.

That means making it easier for staff, volunteers, and others close to the work to regularly contribute photos, videos, stories, and observations. Over time, those contributions can build into a useful library that your team can draw from for fundraising, newsletters, social media, grant reports, donor communications, events, and more.

Many of the goals you shared during the session fit directly into this: building trust, increasing awareness, growing financial support, simplifying storytelling, and creating sustainable systems that involve more of your team.

What the Program Will Look Like

Over the next 12 months, we will combine quarterly group training with quarterly one-on-one coaching. At the six-month point, we will revisit the baseline assessment to look at progress and identify areas where more support may be helpful. At the end of the program, we will reflect on what changed, celebrate successes across the cohort, and think about how to sustain the systems you have built.

You will also have access to optional Campfire Community sessions and office hours. Campfire is a chance to learn directly from other nonprofits by seeing real examples of what they are doing and what they have learned along the way.

Getting Started in MemoryFox

We also gave a quick introduction to MemoryFox 2.0. You do not need to understand everything yet, but you should begin getting comfortable with the basics.

Your Content Library is where your stories, photos, and videos will live. Campaigns help you intentionally collect specific stories from your community. Designs help you turn those stories into shareable pages. And the Storytelling Hub gives staff, volunteers, and others an easy place to continuously share the everyday moments they are already capturing.

Before Our Next Session

Before we meet again, we would love for you to focus on three things:

• Introduce MemoryFox to your team. We will share a Launch Kit with sample emails, Slack messages, presentations, and other materials you can adapt.
• Invite at least three team members to your Storytelling Hub. Think about the people who are closest to the work and most likely to see meaningful moments as they happen.
• Begin reviewing your 12-month storytelling planner. You do not need to complete it yet. Just start identifying important moments on your calendar where stories could help you communicate your impact.

Most importantly, start paying attention to the small moments. The volunteer showing up early. The student reaching a milestone. The staff member witnessing something meaningful. The supporter explaining why they care.

Those moments are your mission happening in real time. Our work together over the next year is to make sure more of them are noticed, captured, and shared.

We are so glad to have you as part of this first Catalyst cohort and excited for everything we will learn together.