Hold onto your hats, I’m giving you more resources than you could possibly use, but every one is worth studying:
General Strategic Storytelling Resources
***Rockefeller Foundation produced (May-June 2014) two outstanding reports you should read:
Digital Storytelling for Social Impact
The Digital Storyteller’s Toolkit, A Primer (It covers the pros and cons of various social media platforms)
And then launched HATCH for Good, a superb resource for nonprofits embarking on strategic storytelling for impact
PEW 2014 Social Media Report
Framing your Issue from Jeremy Porter
Knight Foundation’s Community Information Sources
Storybench
Nancy Duarte’s Storyboarding Method
Knowledge Sharing Tools and Methods Toolkit – Samoan Circle
Story-Based Communication Skills
From Bill Moyers: Telling the Story of Self (Excellent discussion and tips)
Cynthia Kurtz’s Questions to Ask for Stories
Thaler Pekar’s Post on “What Will Replace the Hero’s Journey”
Tips on Working with Sensitive Populations
The Story Spine
Whoever Tells the Best Stories Wins –some useful tips and examples from Karen Dietz
The Irresistible Power of Storytelling as a Strategic Business Tool (Freytag’s Triangle and Paul Zak’s work)
On Republishing your Stories
Hatch for Good on Getting the Most Out of Each Story
HBR on how digital strategy shouldn’t be about attention
Specifically for Historic Preservation & Museums
Gunther Sonnenfeld on Redefining History through the Power of Data Narrative
Forget the Objects, Tell the Stories (Slideshare deck for Museums in particular)
History Colorado and Communications Strategy (.pdf)
Being Social, What Museums Need to Understand for the Future
Museum Bloggers to Watch
Nina Simon, highly influential on (re)designing museums for the times: http://museumtwo.blogspot.com/
Message & Pitch Tips & Resources:
The Stanford Social Innovation Review: The Eight-Word Mission Statement
Ernest Hemingway and the Six-Word Story (Wikipedia)
Andy Goodman on The Five-Part Pitch (.pdf)
Ashoka Infographic on How to Make Your Message Stick
Infographic on Storytelling Versus Corporate Speak
On Shifts in Today’s World & Story
Want Your Message to Stick? Tell a Story
Don’t Post Photos, Post Stories
Chimamanda Adichie: The Danger of a Single Story | TED.com
Organizational Storytelling
The #ROI of Stories
Story-based Practices to Foster Insight
Data-Driven Brand Storytelling: Six Steps to Credible Stories
The Art and Science of Great Brand Storytelling
Donor Loyalty: Five Core Principles to Help Secure the Second Gift
Network for Good: Year-End Fundraising Tips (.pdf)
From Vanessa Chase, The Non-Profit Storytelling Blog
Four Tips on Creating a Nonprofit Story
40 Fundraising Blogs You Should Be Reading in 2015
12 Tips for #WomenBike Storytelling | League of American Bicyclists
Forget the objects, tell the stories
Redefining History Through the Power of Data Narrative | Gunther Sonnenfeld | LinkedIn
Tools/Platforms
NEW* Terrific list of digital storytelling tools
mapbox.com
OneStory
24 Tools for Journalists
Storehouse
Medium
Exposure (visual stories)
Cowbird
NewHive
Storify (for curating stories drawn from hashtags) Example #museumsrespondtoferguson
Storytelling Ideas and Exercises
General Social Media Resources
Tips from Paull Young on Storytelling at Charity:Water (great lessons)
June 2014 Georgetown Report on Seven Storytelling Truths for Nonprofits
The Conversation Prism: All about how we’re using social media
Media Cause posts tips, how-tos and up-to-the-minute reports on all sorts of technology for nonprofits, including social media
21 Tips for Nonprofits Using Social Media (Sound advice)
White Fuse Media Blog
Nonprofits and their 2014 use of Social Media
Tell the Story’s Social Media Primer
Blue State Digital shares some great strategies and tips
Jasper Visser et al’s Digital Engagement Handbook
Social Media 2013 Video (Not specifically about Nonprofits but Illuminating Nonetheless)
The Social Media Effect Useful graphic depiction of how a story spreads
Cinderella 2.0 Video How a Story Moves Across Media and the Web
Promoting a Cause on Social Media
Setting Up a Multi-Channel Campaign (slides from a talk by Amy Sample Ward of NTEN for VT Common Good)
2014 Where Nonprofits Go on Social Media
Oregon Nonprofits Guide to Social Media (Excellent)
Four Tips on Creating a Nonprofit Story
iReport Toolkit
Nonprofit 2.0: All Kinds of Help with Social Media
Beth Kanter’s Blog on the Networked Nonprofit
Kivi’s Nonprofit Communications Marketing Blog – Here’s a Useful Post on Creating a Content Strategy
Knight Digital Media Center’s Mobile Strategies
8 Tips on Using Social Media Effectively for Social Good
How to Write Perfect Posts on Social Media (Platform by Platform)
Optimizing your Social Media Channels, a Guide Useful!
General Examples
NextCity and its Multichannel Submission Requests (great Historic Prez example)
Here’s a great story about how social media saved a town library
A Bicycling Cause Pedals Its Story: Excellent combo of storytelling, social media and fun for good
Dozens and Trails Birmingham Library website –wow!
For Historic Prez
The New Yorker article on Saving Buildings with Social Media
NextCity and its Multichannel Submission Requests (great Historic Prez example)
SoundandStory
Blogging (and Social Blogging a la Tumblr)
Kivi Marketing for Nonprofits on Six Different Kinds of Nonprofit Blogs
Hidden Philadephia Collective Blog
Preservation in the 21st Century: Change is the Constant (and other posts from Preservation Leadership Forum Blog)
Historic Preservation Club Blog
Field Notes from Philly Blog
12 Nonprofits to Follow on Tumblr
From PEW: 6 Types of Twitter Conversations
Infographic on Kinds of Tweets that Engage
Bang the Table’s 20 Tips for Using Twitter
Twitter Tips for Nonprofits
NEW–Resource Media’s Five Twitter Tips
A Recipe for Twitter Success
10 Tips to Increase Your Twitter Followers
Ten Things Not To Do on Twitter (seriously good advice)
How to Use Advanced Search to Listen and Learn
Topsy: Twitter search and analytics
Tweetdeck for viewing/listing, tagging Twitterstream
Hootsuite free and $-levels for deep suite of Twitter tools
Facebook Guide for Nonprofits
John Haydon’s 7 Facebook Cheat Codes for Nonprofits
John Haydon’s Pinterest Page for Nonprofits
Example: Museum in Alaska uses FB to tell its story in an ongoing narrative
Instagram and other Visual Storytelling
Resource Media’s Visual Story Lab (Terrific Guide to Visual Storytelling)
Instagram for Branding and telling your organization’s story
Infographic on Instagram for Nonprofits
Visual Storytelling to Connect Your Brand with New Audiences Tips
Rethinking Visual Storytelling (The Screen as Visual, Connected)
How Many Photos Have Ever Been Taken (some great graphs)
A Post on Next Gen Visual Storytelling
Using Compelling Images: Network for Good
Creative Commons Search for Free Photos
PhotoVoice : Participatory Photography
Sample Permission Form to Photograph Subjects
15 Resources to Help Improve your use of Images on Social Media
Nice use of Instagram to thank donors
Charity:Water simple use of Instagram
Tools for Image Editing: Pixlr, Photobucket, Over (iPhone app for text on photos), ThingLink (add links to images), Gimp, Gifmaker
Beth Kanter’s Recipe for Text Overlays
17 Online Tools to Create Beautiful Visual Quotes
Video (Youtube, Vine, Instagram and Vimeo)
Article on Instagram’s new video feature
On Social Video (Vine, Instagram and Youtube)
Tips on Video Storytelling for Nonprofits
Video Storytelling for Nonprofits Guide
A Free e-Book on Video Storytelling
Five-Shot Video Guide
Andrew Lih’s Video Interviewing Guide
Pinterest Array of Video Storytelling Examples
Guide to Video Editing
Another Guide to Nonprofit Videos
Digital Storytelling Checklist
Vimeo’s Video School
Using Video Well
Example of Vine App Story (Amnesty International)
Five Nonprofits Maximizing Youtube’s Nonprofit Program
What the Budweiser video can teach you about Video Storytelling
Charity:Water use Vimeo to showcase its fundraisers
Historic Preservation Students’ Rap Video
Our City, Our Story (Rockford Illinois)
RWJohnson video snapshots about what excites their staff
New: Create social videos with a smartphone
Other Video Tools
Meograph app
Soo Meta Online Video Editor — Easy!
WeVideo (easy, online, free!)
Should your nonprofit use Pinterest? An infographic from Media Cause
10 Innovative Uses of Pinterest
Links Following Flow of The Workshop (We won’t look at them all)
- Saving Buildings with Social Media – The New Yorker
- 12.23.14 | Big Old Houses: Preservation Triage in Providence | New York Social Diary
- Social Media Site Usage 2014 | Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project
- The Best of Preservation Magazine’s Transitions Department: 2014 – PreservationNation Blog
- Preservation Leadership Forum Blog – Insights and Information for Preservation Professionals
- Vermont Community Foundation > Home
- Wisconsin Historical Society
- Indiana Landmarks – saving Indiana’s historic places
- Pennsylvania Historic Preservation – Blog of the Pennsylvania Historic Preservation OfficePennsylvania Historic Preservation | Blog of the Pennsylvania Historic Preservation Office
- Portland Preservation | A blog written by The Bosco-Milligan Foundation/Architectural Heritage Center
- Hidden City Philadelphia | Home
- Field Notes
- Preservation in Mississippi | It ain’t all moonlight and magnolias
- Cafe Unknown
- Preservation in Pink
- Menokin: Rubble With A Cause | A Revolutionary Exploration of Historic Preservation
- Project for Public Spaces | Placemaking for Communities
- Help Us With Our #ChangingCity Project – Next City
- Fears vs. Dreams
- historic preservation | Tumblr
- Twitter Search, Monitoring, & Analytics | Topsy.com
- @MuseumTweets/Museum Social Media Mgrs on Twitter
- Historic Scotland
- Vermont Foodbank
- Indiana Landmarks
- Shelburne Farms
- Shelburne Museum
- NorthWoods Stewardship Center
- Bangor Maine Police Department
- 8 Pictures That Capture How Cities Changed in 2014 – Next City
- Photo by charitywater
- Photo by charitywater
- shelburnefarms on Instagram
- bevmainstreets on Instagram
- #historicpreservation on Instagram
- Historic Cemeteries, as Seen on Instagram | National Trust for Historic Preservation
- Media Cause | Infographic: Instagram for Nonprofits
- Are you ready? Get set, let’s go! on Vimeo
- Happy New Year from Circus Smirkus on Vimeo
- Sound and Story – YouTube
- The National Register Rap – YouTube
- RWJF’s Pioneer Portfolio: Open to New Ideas – YouTube
- Immigrant Nation
- #TuringTour (with images, tweets) · sciencemuseum · Storify
- “#TateTours” in tweets, images, videos and links · Storify
- #Museumsrespondtoferguson (with images, tweets) · aleiabrown · Storify
- Our City, Our Story | All Stories
- Four magic steps to creating shareable, purpose-driven social media content
- Case Study: Community Foundation Two-Person Content Team · Hatch
- 15 of the best Instagram videos of 2014 | Econsultancy
- History Treasured & Sometimes Endangered
- Say Quarterly • The Power of Point of View
- Stories – Encore.org
- Losing Ground
- Home | Sound and Story Project of the Hudson Valley
- http://www.museumhack.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Being-Social-What-Museums-Need-to-Understand-for-the-Future.pdf
- What is Missing?
- Dozens & Trails
- In Summer We Swim: Waterkeeper Swim Guide
- Reflecting the Past | Heritage Sandbox
- National Parks Project
- 24 Tools for Journalists to Explore in 2015 — Medium
- PreservationNation’s profile – Vine
- 17 Online Photo Editors to Create Beautiful Visual Quotes
- 6 Clever Mobile Apps Created by Nonprofits
- 10 Tips For Crafting the Perfect Tweet | Simply Measured
- The 30 Most Active Museums on Instagram | TOTEMS
- Visual Story Lab – What makes an image stand out on Instagram?
- www.resource-media.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Instagram-Tips-for-Nonprofits.pdf
- Why Nonprofit Organizations Should Use Medium to Tell Their Story – Best practices, tips & fundraising ideas for nonprofits
- The Single Chair Lift at Mad River Glen, Fayston, VT – YouTube
- No Place Like Home — Medium
- Visual Storytelling Comparison: One Story, Three Platforms–Cowbird, Exposure & Medium – Community Expressions, LLC
Historic Preservation Examples
NextCity and its Multichannel Submission Requests (great Historic Prez example)
Super-connected Wisconsin Historical Society (FB, Twitter, Tumblr)
Indiana Landmarks Weekly Blog and Facebook page
Cafe Unknown Blog (Portland Oregon History) and Portland Preservation Blog
Preservation in Mississippi blog
Pennsylvania Historic Preservation Blog
Rubble with a Cause Blog
Historic Scotland Video on Facebook with Greatest hits from 2014
Great blogpost, “Jane Jacobs was Right,” but writer never responds to comments : shuts down conversation
Knight Foundation Competition Winner Ghost Signs Project Blog
What is Missing?
In Summer We Swim
Reflecting the Past — this group does all kinds of inventive, innovative storytelling
Immigrant Nation: participatory video storytelling
Philadephia Art Museum’s Twitter
Community Expressions, LLC 
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