So hello, and welcome to our Impactful Projects

and Planning microtraining series.

I'm Jami Yazdani.

In today's session, we've got David Norris

here to talk about the importance of stories

to projects and planning.

So Dave is the CEO of Proofpact, a nonprofit

social proof and engagement software.

So thanks for joining me, Dave.

I'm gonna go ahead and stop sharing.

So tell us a little bit about you and your

work and Proofpact.

Yeah.

Thanks, Jami.

I appreciate the opportunity to be here and

excited to be part of the first one, by the

way.

Yeah.

So Proofpact is social proof and engagement

software built for nonprofits that helps them

collect stories from their community, engage

those storytellers and then socialize those

stories as proof of impact.

And I'd say that there's a heavy focus on

donors specifically.

But there's many other cohorts and constituents

that you know, where user experiences can

benefit from having something like this as

a mechanism for collecting that feedback,

strategic planning being one of them, of course.

Great.

So the kind of big question today, I really

want to get into is why stories matter?

And specifically, you know, what value do

stories bring to mission driven organizations

like nonprofits?

Yeah, good question.

So I think if we take this one step back,

further back here, and we think about reviews.

Reviews, you know, kind of tend to be the

five star mechanic or mechanism that turns

you know, I call it turning a constituent

into a critic, which is something I don't

think nonprofits really want to do.

Obviously, they're all looking for the same

thing.

They're looking for sort of this meat on the

bone, emotional aspects of what a story actually

is.

Right?

Like, it's, uh, it's telling of an experience

had, that gets down into, you know, nitty

gritty sometimes, and sometimes it is emotional.

Sometimes it is, you know, like, we should

be confidential in some cases.

But for the most part, you know, again, I

said, taking it a step further back, like

reviews don't really work for nonprofits.

I'd say nine times out of 10, maybe even higher

of a percentage, but stories also are inclusive

of, you know, a community's voice, right.

And it's not just this arbitrary score that's

shared.

And I'd say it's that inclusivity that really

engages others from the community and shows

them too that this nonprofit is, you know,

actively listening.

It's not just a monologue anymore.

It's a dialogue.

And so I think as a long winded way to answer

that question, that would be, that would be

my answer.

Cool.

So, um, I think yeah, so I do think the review

thing is kind of interesting, because there

are so many ways to capture reviews, but yeah,

and a nonprofit, or even other mission or

mission driven organizations, kind of, daily

engagements.

That's not necessarily what they're looking

for and I do think there's some confidentiality,

sometimes around people not wanting to review

certain services that nonprofits maybe offer.

And so I know for me, I see a lot in my planning

work how important stories can really be.

And I know that with a lot of strategic planning,

often folks do, you know, kind of surveys

and things of their community.

But I've really seen the value of listening

to people's stories, and often through interviews.

And so I, I recently worked with a nonprofit

that was doing kind of a shorter term strategic

planning, and we were looking at priorities

or strategic priorities and kind of an implementation

plan.

And so we did a bunch of interviews of board

members, kind of partners, some of their primary

constituents, and those interviews, just short

kind of 30 minute things, and often they were

shorter than that, were were really valuable.

First of all, because people did have stories

to tell.

Particularly the people who were benefiting

from their services had really impactful kind

of lovely, wonderful stories that they shared

in their short interviews.

And beyond the use in our planning for those,

because we got a lot of really good information

about the priorities of the organization.

But I kept thinking, wow, if we could use

these stories in other ways for this nonprofit,

because it just really, you know, people really

spoke to the impact that their services had

on on kind of their lives and the changes

that had been been made.

And I really felt like those stories were

so valuable.

And also it put kind of specific examples

to some of the stuff we were seeing out of

the other kind of quantitative data.

And I just don't think it's information that

we would have gotten in any kind of, you know,

survey.

And, yeah, I just see stories as being so

critical to that, to planning.

And I think that's one of the reasons why

I wanted to have you here today, because I

found, you know, Proofpact as a tool to be

really, I think, could be really valuable

in helping to gather some of those stories,

in ways that maybe are a little more efficient

than then, you know, we scheduled tons and

tons of interviews, and of course, you know,

trying to get people's schedules together

is always kind of a nightmare.

So I think I really see the impact and gathering

stories.

But I also see it in projects.

And, and in, you know, promoting this, this

event, someone had, you know, kind of commented

that they don't think about stories when they

think about projects.

But I think when you're building, if you're

building deliverables for users, knowing how

they're going to use it, and you know, how

it's going to impact them can be really, really

valuable.

And I think in more sort of agile project

management methods, design thinking type of

methods, getting those user stories, and their

feedback is so critical.

And so that's kind of how I see stories impacting

projects and planning.

But are there kind of specific ways that you're

seeing folks using stories and in planning

and, and/or projects?

Yeah, that's, I mean, you hit on some of the,

the high points there.

You know, I think, I think of it as bettering

the user experience, also.

If you think about, you know, outside of,

specifically strategic planning, because there's,

there's a lot of, you know, I mean, reputation

management is is a flavor in there.

And there's tools that we have that also,

you know, as you've seen, kind of outline

and show in a drill down format, the experiences

had by staff or the experiences had by board

members and you know, they're obviously their

stories can be analyzed at that point too.

But the reason I say a bettering of user experiences

is iff you think about, okay, so take donors,

for example, a donor makes a donation.

And oftentimes they're redirected back to

the nonprofit's website, or they are kind

of it, that's that's usually where the interaction

stops, I suppose.

And I don't suppose, I know that's, that's

the case, most often.

It's in that moment that we should be asking

them for their story, you know, what motivated

them to give, what motivated them to, you

know, take action, right now.

And if you wait, you know, 10 minutes, they're

likely off of their phone, gone from their

computer, doing something else.

If you wait three days, you know, they're,

they're not thinking in those ways anymore.

And if you wait six months, or a year, whatever,

you're not getting them.

So you mentioned this, you know, earlier,

and it's, it's, it's kind of nice, because

it's on their terms, in these instances.

But it's also in their terms at the right

time.

And, you know, for instance, like interviewing

board members, you know, trying to schedule

that is kind of hectic.

So if you give them this and say, you know,

we need, you know, these, we need your feedback

in by, you know, the end of April, they can

now do it on their terms, and you can send,

you know, reminders and such, but it's it's

way better than logistically trying to figure

out like, Okay, well, when can we sit down

with you to answer these specific questions?

And then, oh, well, you can't do it for another

two weeks.

Okay.

So we'll have to wait.

And it's the same way for like the donors

that are coming out of, you know, that donation,

it's done in a timely manner, still on their

terms, they have the ultimately they have

the choice to share their story or not.

And kind of this, you know, the same way with

volunteers too.

Volunteers are also another cohort that I

would consider, like, in a timely manner before

they leave, you know, the campus, let's ask

them for, you know, their feedback, their

their story, like, what?

Why did they volunteer?

And so yeah, I think timing is a huge one

here that I think, and ultimately to, you

know, its timing, and then having everything

in one place, because you don't want, you

know, things in Google Docs and people sending

emails and you know, handwritten letters,

things of that nature, too.

So yeah, you hit, you hit some very important

reasons there as to why someone would want

to use a platform, like Proofpact.

Yeah, it's timing, timing, is everything.

User experience iss everything to do.

Yeah, and I do, you know, when you were talking

about volunteers, I just, I, yeah, I can see

getting their feedback as they're, you know,

right after their volunteering and what they

enjoyed.

And and also, I think there's a value sometimes

in those individual stories.

And so thinking about those kinds of individual

board interviews, obviously, it would be easier

to go into a board meeting and say, What do

you guys think about this?

But there's something about gathering it when

it's just about that person and their story.

That some of the people, I'm sure that we

interviewed, you know, in that recent example

of some strategic planning, what they shared,

and that kind of one-on-one was, I doubt many

of them would have shared that much detail

or information in some meeting with 10 other

board members, right?

There are people who just aren't going to

kind of have those conversations.

And so I think that that individual piece

of really getting some individual feedback

and letting people tell the story, in the

way that they're, that they're comfortable

telling it.

Because I do think something I see with planning,

but also with projects, is sometimes we're

using wording that doesn't mean anything to

our community.

And so getting, you know, kind of hearing

how they're describing, you know, what we

call one thing, I think, can also be really

helpful.

And when you're kind of filtering people through

some kind of clicking survey, they're not

necessarily, you know, kind of arguing with

your, or their wording there.

So, I don't know if you're seeing that value.

Absolutely.

Right.

They start thinking, they start thinking in

ways that you would want them to think, right?

Because you're, you're guiding them, you're

prompting them, and so all of a sudden, they

start giving you answers that they think you

would want to hear.

I think, and one of the things that Proofpact

does, by the way, is it starts with an open

and relatively open ended, you know, share

your story, right?

It's from there where you can then choose

to then follow up.

And when you're engaging that storyteller

afterwards, you can actually request, you

know, do you care if we follow up with you

on, you know, regarding your story?

And it's in those follow ups where you can

then provide, let's say, or even directly

after that story is shared, you could provide

something like more of like a net promoter

score style of survey.

But what you're doing is you're engaging them

first in a way that they would want to be

engaged in.

You're right, they're telling their story

how they want to tell their story, which is

I think, the beauty of it all.

So, is it?

I do think it's.. do you think it's that open

ended question that really is kind of the?

For someone trying you know, for people who

are listening, who are trying to gather stories,

is is that open ended question that you think

is creating that environment where people

can really share?

It feels comfortable.

It feels less pointed.

It's not, you know, I'm not trying to figure

out what you what you want.

I'm telling you what I want you to know, I

think at that point, so I think that's, that's,

again, it's like a comfort thing.

It's like where, where would you want to start?

Do you want to start by, you know, going through

this like list of questions, or do you want

to start by, you know, just telling tell us

something, right?

And it can be as simple as that.

Obviously, you want to provide a little bit

of a boundary there.

But yeah, that will ultimately it's, it's

comfortable.

Wonderful.

Well, thanks, Dave, we're at about 15 minutes.

This has been great.

I'm sure we could, we could talk longer.

I'm always, I'm always happy to talk longer.

But, but anyway, so thanks.

If you have questions about Proofpact, or

more about the work Dave's doing, do, do reach

out.

If you're interested, from my perspective,

from Yazdani Consulting's perspective, about

getting meaningful stakeholder feedback, including

gathering stories, that's really a focus of

my streamlined strategic planning approach.

And you can learn more at yazdaniconsulting.com/isp.

So thank you for participating in our Impactful

Projects and Planning microtraining series.

You can visit yazdaniconsulting.com/ipp to

view all of the sessions in the series and

learn about upcoming trainings.

So, thanks everybody.