It might go without saying, but you need a system to maintain your StoryGarden.

It's time to reap the benefits of all the story seeds you've carefully cultivated, sowed and nurtured! You can start harvesting those stories to use in fundraising appeals, emails, newsletters, gratitude reports, social media posts... and more!

Lets get this garden growing!  By now, you’ve sowed some good story seeds. It’s time to nurture (fertilize, water, weed) those seeds into some really good, solid, emotional stories.

Assuming you've taken some time to cultivate the story soil in your organization... Your next step is to start sowing the seeds – which means reaching out and encouraging people to share stories with you.

What’s the storytelling environment like in your organization? Is the 'soil' hard and dry (pretty set in its ways), or is it soft and flexible -- easy to stick that shovel into and move things around a bit?

Gardens come in all shapes and sizes, right? But every healthy, flourishing garden takes time, hard work, and even LOVE, in order to grow.

Some great out of the box story ideas for you. This is a guest post by Carly Euler of Memory Fox.

How to create an inspiring and delight-filled donor newsletter instead of a boring, navel gazing one that no one will actually read!

Is it better to have loved and lost, or never to love at all?

I recently wrote copy for a Spring direct mail and email appeal for a local theatre company, and thought it might be helpful to share some of the process with you!

These are key to any successful relationship. How can you use the elements of surprise and delight to cultivate your donor relationships?

Your (true, authentic) story matters to the work you do — maybe a lot more than you might think.