C O U N C I L O F M I C H I G A N F O U N D A T I O N S 4 4 T H A N N U A L C O N F E R E N C E
PERSUASIVE STORYTELLING SOURCING, WRITING, PITCHING Council of Michigan Foundations
Everyone has a story to tell
Everyone has a story to tell
How do you break through the noise?
What’s your mission?
- Problem - Solution - What’s next
Sourcing a story: People, people, people
Know your audience. Visualize them when you conceive your story.
THINK LIKE YOUR READER What would interest the reader. What would the reader want to know. Make your reader identify or sympathize with the subject matter. Time is precious. Competition is fierce.
Drop the jargon!!! Friends don’t let friends write like this “Long timeline for trialing, revising and proving out new models in workforce development and lengthy process to support ongoing operations at scale.”
Sample #1 Rayleen Esparza learned the benefits of tennis firsthand last summer as a 13-year-old from East Los Angeles. Her tennis skills and academic performance earned her a once-in-a-lifetime chance to fly to New York and hit tennis balls with Serena Williams on the US Open courts. It was part of the Return the Serve campaign, now in its third year through the teamwork of Chase and the charitable foundation of the United States Tennis Association. "It felt amazing getting a hug from the best player in the world," Rayleen said. "I'm going to remember this forever."
Sample #2 This year, the one million Americans who have Parkinson's Disease have reason to look forward with optimism. They may soon get something deceptively simple: a normal, symptom-free day. By the end of 2017, several new drugs could hit the market to manage debilitating aspects of Parkinson's, like tremors and rigidity, through a steady delivery of dopamine. A few treatments in development to help ease the severity of the symptoms include an inhaler that patients can quickly use for pain relief and a breath-strip-like product that could be placed under the tongue to restore motor functions. Such advancements are largely thanks to the Michael J. Fox Foundation, whose aggressive funding of Parkinson's research has pushed many new drugs into development.
Sample #3 In 2010, the FC Harlem boys' soccer team drove from New York City to Chicago to compete in a national championship tournament. It was the first time many of the team members had left the New York area, packed for a trip, or stayed in a hotel. As they explored downtown Chicago, they were noticed in their maroon and gold club jackets with the custom-designed lion and shield logo on their chests. A few of the boys told the organization's executive director, Irv Smalls, that they felt famous, that they felt important. They'd gone to Chicago for the competition, but came home with so much more. Founded in 1991 as Harlem Youth Soccer, the organization has expanded immensely under Smalls' guidance. "Sport is the draw to bring them in, but [our program] is really mentoring," he said. “It's talking about giving back, exposing kids to more opportunities."
BEFORE YOU WRITE Make sure you know exactly what you want to say.
The “Budget Line” Reduce the gist of your memo or article to one sentence (for your use only). Journalists call this the “ budget line .” Example: “Zika mosquitoes now detected in South Beach.” or: “Romanian villagers object to police investigation of vampire slayings”
OUTLINE Make a list of the main points you want to make in your writing piece.
ORGANIZE Organize your list, keeping like- minded themes together.
STARTING POINTS 1. THE LEAD OR 1ST PARAGRAPH 2. THE NUT GRAPH
SEIZE READER’S ATTENTION THE LEAD SHOULD BE CLEAR: “Hey this is important!” or “Can you believe this?” or “Imagine that!”
The “ budget line ” can be a helpful first sentence, which you can revise later.
NUT GRAF What does this story say? WHY SHOULD I CARE?? WHAT DOES THIS MEAN???
The Inverted Pyramid The first paragraph summarizes the story’s most important facts This paragraph adds more detail & background This one has more detail This one more Etc. etc.
CLASSIC DECLARATIVE STORY STRUCTURE Lede: What happened? Quick Context (NUT GRAPH): Why should I care? Good quote: Pithy. Human voice. Facts, support, proof that it’s news.
Freestanding emergency centers have sprouted in recent years across the suburban landscape, taking root in affluent neighborhoods and directly challenging nearby medical clinics and hospitals. As these centers offer another choice for people tired of deflating wait times at hospital emergency rooms, their escalating numbers are sending ripples across the health-care field. Advocates say they provide consumers with an unprecedented level of care while critics argue they do little to help rural Americans siphon away skilled emergency physicians and too often stick patients with overinflated bills. “The idea of delivering fast, quick, high-quality emergency care ... is very innovative," said Dr. Jeremiah Schuur, lead author of a study published last month by Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. "Depending on your viewpoint, they offer competition or a duplication of services.” Researchers with Brigham and Women's Hospital found the number of stand-alone emergency departments grew from 222 in 2009 to 360 across 30 states as of March 2015. The most are in Texas, which in 2009 adopted a law that allowed private, for-profit ventures to provide the kind of emergency services that hospitals do.
Police report • At 5:23 p.m. Tuesday Poplarville Police officers Davis and Jones responded, to a report about a disturbance on the 300 block of Green St. They found several people arguing and shouting. A woman was crying. • The officers found two men lying on the pavement. One appeared to be bleeding from the head. The other appeared to have wounds to his torso and arms. • A witness named Patricia S. Benson reported the men had argued over a parking place. She said the first man -- identified by police as Gregory D. Simpson, 37 -- pulled a handgun from his jacket and threatened the other man, identified as Robert C. Taylor, 31. • Ms. Benson said Mr. Taylor retrieved a shotgun from the trunk of his car and fired at Mr. Simpson. Mr. Simpson was wounded but managed to fire 2 or 3 shots at or near Mr. Taylor. • Mr. Simpson and Mr. Taylor were transported to the Municipal Hospital. Mr. Simpson was declared dead shortly after arriving. • The deceased worked for Emory Towing. Mr. Taylor is employed as chief of staff for Poplarville Mayor Barbara Cartwright. He has been charged with second-degree murder and is being held in the Poplarville Jail awaiting arraignment. His attorney, Rebecca Jones, said he will plead not guilty.
The Inverted Pyramid The first paragraph summarizes the story’s most important facts This paragraph adds more detail & background This one has more detail This one more Etc. etc.
Pigs escape disaster Three little pigs survived a fierce attack from a lone wolf Sunday after barricading themselves in a sturdy brick house.
HEY MARTHA! (STARTLING FACTS OR STARTLING ACCOUNT) A North Carolina man was freed from jail Wednesday after a judge tossed his conviction in a double-murder case tried 21 years ago by the prosecutor who was later disbarred for lying and misconduct in the Duke University lacrosse rape case.
MAROTINU DE SUS, Romania — Before Toma Petre's relatives pulled his body from the grave, ripped out his heart, burned it to ashes, mixed it with water and drank it, he hadn't been in the news much. That's often the way here with vampires. Quiet lives, active deaths. Villagers here aren't up in arms about the undead — they're pretty common — but they are outraged that the police are involved in a simple vampire slaying. After all, vampire slaying is an accepted, though hidden, bit of national heritage, even if illegal. "What did we do?" pleaded Flora Marinescu, Petre's sister and the wife of the man accused of re-killing him. "If they're right, he was already dead. If we're right, we killed a vampire and saved three lives. ... Is that so wrong?"
Anecdotal JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — When Dequan Jackson had his only brush with the law, at 13, he tried to do everything right. Charged with battery for banging into a teacher while horsing around in a hallway, he pleaded guilty with the promise that after one year of successful probation, the conviction would be reduced to a misdemeanor. He worked 40 hours in a food bank. He met with an anger management counselor. He kept to an 8 p.m. curfew except when returning from football practice or church. And he kept out of trouble. But Dequan and his mother were unable to meet one final condition: payment of $200 in court and public defender fees. For that reason alone, his probation was extended for what turned out to be 14 more months. Dequan’s experience is hardly an isolated one. The ways that fines and fees can entrap low-income people in the adult courts have received enormous attention in the past year or two. But the systematic imposition of costs on juvenile offenders, with equally pernicious effects on the poorest of them, is far less known.
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