Today, I’m giving my Creating Donor Evangelists seminar at the annual conference of the New England Association of Healthcare Philanthropy. Part of that seminar involves posting the pictures of real people that are impacted by your mission. Your organization’s website and publications could always have a place with a powerful testimonial and a picture of the person.
Last week, I read a blog post that took this to a new level. The bloggers at BlogBaud.com recommended checking out MercyShips.org. This link brings you to there “Success Stories.” The first page is pictures of happy people with their name. If you click on their picture, you are brought to a page with before and after pictures. There’s Ali before and after the successful cleft lip surgery. There’s four-year-old Ami before and after a successful eye surgery. And check out Abu. This guy had a tumor the size of a grapefruit in his face before it was successfully removed. And there are dozens more pictures in this area.
With the smiling “after” pictures, Mercy Ships doesn’t even need testimonials. The pictures speak for themselves.
My favorite part? “Success Stories” is very easy to find on their home page. One of the tabs at the top. Genius! Why bury these compelling images?
You know you’re changing the lives of the people you work with. But are you telling the story?
And are you telling it with pictures?
Give it a try. It’ll make the people proud to be supporting you. And it will be an easy answer to a donor’s possible “how do I know you’re still successful at what you do” question.
