Facts don’t motivate people.
Taglines don’t motivate people.
Stories motivate people.
People don’t create understanding from facts or taglines.
People create understanding from stories.
And yet, advancement folk spend significant time and effort collecting and sharing facts and wordsmithing pithy taglines – all with the hope that people will stitch together the motivational story for themselves.
If your aim is to help people understand the need of your mission, or motivate them to give, or volunteer, or show up, or invite others, you should start first by creating a winsome story to share.
And you should spend far less time collecting more facts or crafting new taglines.
It’s not that facts and taglines are unhelpful.
It’s that their best use is in helping people recall the compelling story already you’ve told them.
