139 – Storytelling Secrets with Bill Shander

Episode Transcription

David Pisarek: Are your impact reports full of numbers but still fail to move donors to act? Bill Shander reveals how non-profits can turn raw data into powerful stories that build trust, inspire action, and unlock more funding. So stay tuned. Let’s transform the way that you communicate your impact.

Welcome to the Non-profit Digital Success Podcast, and I’m your host, David. In this episode, we’re going to be talking about data storytelling, impact communication, and stakeholder alignment with Bill Shander.

Before I continue, I want to mention that our podcast does need your help. So if you find this episode or any of our others insightful, interesting, or helpful, please like, subscribe, share, and comment. It really does help our podcast immensely.

Bill teaches data storytelling and visualization on LinkedIn Learning for over 2 million students and in workshops worldwide. His clients include corporations, governments, and NGOs, and he’s lectured at Harvard and Stanford. He’s also the founder of Beehive Media.

Bill, thank you so much for joining the show today.

Bill Shander: Thank you, David. I’m really happy to be here.

David Pisarek: Awesome. So let’s just jump right in. Non-profit executive director who’s maybe trying to increase donations and demonstrate their impact. What does data storytelling actually look like in practical terms?

Bill Shander: Yeah, the most practical terms. And by the way, there’s actually a really interesting research study that sort of illustrates it perfectly. But in the most practical terms, it is that rather than throwing numbers at people, you explain the numbers. It’s truly that simple.

And so the research study that was done, I think it was actually out of Stanford, God, 10, 15, maybe even 20 years ago at this point. They took— it was for non-profits. They made a bunch of brochures, put a bunch of statistics in one version, sent it out to people, then made another set of brochures, put stories about the recipients of the funding for this particular non-profit in them, and sent that out to people. And guess which one actually delivered dollars back to the organization? I don’t remember the percentage difference, but it was statistically significant.

Storytelling works. We connect to stories as humans. We want to hear about the people affected by the dollars we’re giving to non-profits. A bunch of numbers are— they’re dry, they’re stale, they’re cold. It’s not what actually makes an impact on people.

So storytelling is simply communicating the ideas, the insights, the humanity, the emotion behind the numbers, not just the numbers themselves.

David Pisarek: I love the idea of that. And one of the things I’ve talked about on the show in the past is leveraging stories to connect emotionally with people. We want to pull on those emotional heartstrings because that’s what’s going to get people to care about the organization and the work you’re doing. And that really does come through in exactly what you’re saying.

Bill Shander: Yeah, and you know, for some people, they may hear that phrasing and say, ‘Oh, wait, is that manipulative? I don’t want to manipulate my audience.’ Well, no, I mean, we’re not going to do it just to make people feel bad and try to guilt them into giving us money, right? We are good non-profit leaders. We have real impact numbers. We wanna show that impact and say, ‘You know, we increased blah, blah, blah by 62%.’

We’re still gonna say that stuff, but the emotional part is what people are gonna feel and remember. So just don’t think of it as manipulative. If you’re afraid of that being the issue, you know, you’re trying to share true impact. You are doing good work, and people can feel it. Let people really connect with it. Because that’s, again, that’s what they remember is that emotional connection.

David Pisarek: So I think, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think a lot of non-profits really struggle to communicate their impact in this kind of way, right? And we know that they’re doing meaningful work. People don’t start non-profits for the money or the notoriety, right? They started to actually solve a problem, to help do something meaningful. Why do you think they struggle to talk about their impact in this way?

Bill Shander: You know, I think one of the first symptoms, one of the first issues is that they struggle to measure it in the first place. right? Like some of these things are difficult to measure, or we have difficulty identifying what exactly we should measure.

You know, it’s like the classic world, like I used to do web design and development, and in that world, I built a website. What do I measure? I guess I should measure clicks and page views. Well, clicks and page views show me how many people showed up, but that doesn’t tell me whether I did a good job. Are those clicks and page views translating into, you know, product sales or, you know, donations given in the case of a non-profit, etcetera? We’re measuring the wrong metric. And that happens a lot in non-profits, too.

There’s been such an impact on impact reporting over the last, you know, let’s say 10, 15 years, where I think people are getting better at that. But then, yeah, we struggle to communicate it. We don’t want to sound like we are bragging. Maybe we are afraid our numbers aren’t quite as good as the next person’s, etc. And on top of all that, you know, we struggle to translate impact numbers into messaging that will have that emotional impact.

So, you know, it’s just hard to do. People, when we have data in front of us, this is universal, not just non-profits. We get so obsessed with the numbers. If we’re lucky enough to have good numbers and be focused on the numbers and know what we’re measuring and all the other stuff that I just said, maybe we’re not so good at that.

If we are, then we get obsessed with the numbers. ‘Oh my goodness, it’s 42.7%. I got to make sure I go that to 5 decimal places and give them all the numbers.’ So we just throw a bunch of data at people, and we forget to actually express it. There are many symptoms, many issues. They’re all very, very real and very common.

David Pisarek: I think one of the reasons infographics tend to be, you know, a really great way to showcase information is that it’s very visual. You can kind of see the story that’s happening, but I don’t think enough organizations are leveraging them or leveraging them in the right way. Right? If you just put a bunch of numbers in there and you’re like, all right, this many children fed, this many schools helped, this many, right? Like, you’re still not telling that story.

And one of the things that I would encourage the folks that are listening to this is to find 1 or 2 or 3 or 10 people or cities or audiences or animals or whatever you’re doing to help and follow them for like 4 months or 6 months or a year or 2 years or 3 years and tell that story along the way, the journey that happens of, all right, well, ‘this is before, this is you coming in and helping from their donor dollars that came in’ and make your audience part of that conversation as well.

Bill Shander: Yeah, I think it’s really good advice, you know, that longitudinal approach, really what is the progression, and then that will translate into a nice visual story to your point.

The other thing I’ll add about visuals is this: you know, there have been decades and decades of research into human psychology, specifically the human visual perception system, that proves human visual response is incredibly powerful. So not only all the other things we’ve already said, you’ve got to tell the story, you’ve got to explain the big picture, et cetera. We have to connect emotionally.

But on top of that, if you show me a number, 42, you know, first of all, the number means nothing without context anyway. Is 42 good or bad? Is it high or low? I don’t even know. But then on top of that, let’s say it’s 42%. You know, if you show me that as a number, especially if it’s like a table of numbers and it’s supposed to compare all these numbers to each other, we know humans are not good at comparing tables of numbers or understanding tables of numbers. But if you show me the visual representation of that in the form of a chart, a pie chart, a stack bar chart, whatever the form it takes, we know that our instantaneous subconscious response to that visual will be more easily understood.

So yes, connect emotionally and all the other stuff, tell the stories, but those visuals will help to do that. It will make the data easier to understand. So don’t just think of visuals as being, ‘Oh, they’re pretty pictures. They’ll be memorable. They’ll be sort of— they’re eye candy,’ which is all true and very important. I love eye candy. And on top of that, the visual will help your audience better understand your data.

So for all those reasons, yes, use visuals as much as you possibly can.

David Pisarek: On the flip side of that, right, let’s talk about some consequences— what is the problem with poor data communication, especially when it comes to donor trust, funding decisions, or even board confidence?

Bill Shander: Yeah, I mean, there are a few things.

One is that some people claim and believe that they prefer the table of numbers. ‘Don’t show me a chart. You’re dumbing it down, right? You’re editing it. You’re hiding something.’ And so they think that if you just give them a table of numbers, it’ll be better for them. First of all, they’re wrong.

There’s actually been research into this. People who think they prefer tables will perform better with the visual. Very interesting study about that one. I won’t go into it. But long story short, that’s one potential issue: people’s own perceptions of their responses to visuals, which, again, aren’t even true. But still, if they think it, then there’s some truth to it.

You know, the other issue is that, yes, you know, a poorly designed visual, a poorly selected chart, an infographic that is more confusing, not clarifying. All of those things might make your infographic, your data slide, whatever it is you’re creating, fall flat and damage that impact on your audience. So it doesn’t mean you have to become the best designer in the history of the universe. There are a few key skills you just need to learn to do it really well.

But yeah, I mean, you know, like anything, you can do it badly and make things worse for yourself. But

if you’re thoughtful, careful, and strategic in how you present information to people, it’s generally better to make it visual and tell stories.

David Pisarek: Would it be helpful, maybe for somebody who’s thinking of doing this and using your advice, to include some visuals? You know, the advent of AI can definitely help with this.

You can drop a bunch of information, make sure there’s no like personal information in there, right? But you can drop information, a table of data into AI and say, ‘Produce me a chart that shows X, Y, and Z, or these colours or whatever that’s branded for you.’ I think that’s probably a really great starting point to get something as a foundation.

But would you also recommend still including the chart for anyone who wants to fall into the sense of, ‘I still need the chart because I don’t believe the data that you’re showing me’?

Bill Shander: Yeah. And you know, AI is a really good illustration of that fear in a way, right? Because AI hallucinates, right? AI gets things wrong.

So we should have a healthy dose of skepticism when we look at a chart, whether it’s in a presentation, whether it’s one we generated ourselves in AI or anything else.

But yes, start with AI. Absolutely. It’ll help inspire an idea that maybe you think more than you do manually, or maybe you can just edit it and perfect it outside of AI. But yeah, it’s a great way to start. AI can discover the insights in the data, package it up in a way that’s compelling, and then you can sort of tweak it, deliver it, and perfect it from there. Definitely a good way to go.

There are, of course, the GenAI tools, which will do a decent job at this for sure. And there are the fit-for-purpose AI features, let’s say, built into data storytelling, data visualization tools, things like Tableau and Power BI that are built to do that kind of work and also have AI built into them. So it might be sort of the best of both because those tools are good at data storytelling and visualization.

The AI just sort of helps get it done more quickly and more efficiently.

David Pisarek: Amazing. So, in terms of balancing emotional storytelling with hard data, we have some visuals coming in. Let’s include the data chart, right? That could be at the end as an addendum or something like that. So if anybody does want to call you out on it and say, ‘Hey, you know, like, are you telling me that—’ ‘Sure, the data is right there, go and take a look at it,’ right?

You don’t have to hide it, you don’t have to withhold any of that information, especially for presenting to the board, right? Like, they should know all the numbers and everything if they want to dig into it. Chances are, they don’t have the time or the bandwidth to think about it. They just want to know that it’s there as a safety net, that you actually gave them everything.

Bill Shander: Yeah, my favourite part of every presentation is the appendix. Because you can dump all the details in there for exactly that purpose. It’s CYA, it’s more detail if they need it, et cetera. But for the storytelling part, tell your story.

So I would say, like, literally put the tables and numbers, put the entire spreadsheet in the appendix and send it to them if you’re able to from a transparency standpoint. And then yes, the chart probably even belongs in the story itself. So if it’s really important that I explain that, you know, 42% of our impact was in the US last year, 37% was in Congo, and only however many is left percent in, you know, 4 other countries, it might be worthwhile showing that as a pie chart or something. And if it’s really important that you have those precise numbers, I will include the chart, because I’m doing something with precise numbers.

If, instead, my story is, listen, that the vast majority of our work affects the United States, the Congo, and a few other places. I’m not even saying the numbers themselves. I might still show that chart there, because it reinforces what I’m showing, even though the story is emphasizing the exact numbers a little less.

But then yeah, the full detail, the full dataset might be in that appendix. And those are the sort of decisions you get to make along the way. Should I include the chart up here or down here? You know, you make the call, you know your board, all the other things, but you know, yeah, that’s exactly it. You better, you know, include the detail, be as transparent as you can and wanna be, and push it down lower if it’s gonna interrupt or distract from the actual storytelling.

David Pisarek: Love that idea because then you’re coming off as completely open, honest, transparent. You’re not holding anything back. All information is there. Are they gonna look at it? Probably not, right? But it’s there if they want to.

Bill Shander: And there’s always that one person in the meeting who’s gonna ask that one annoying, detailed question that is gonna distract from the story. And you have that appendix to go to. ‘All right, fine, Joe, I’ll go to page 47 and show you that thing, but now, can we get back to the story?’ You know? So yeah, it serves so many purposes.

David Pisarek: Pause for a quick moment.

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Okay, back to the episode.

I think a lot of organizations have gone this way, exactly what we’ve been talking about in their annual reports, right? Where they tell the story. They’ve got some of the stats and data. I think comparative data, like if your organization, just back to your point, is to help X, Y, and Z in the United States as well as the Congo and some other places.

If the shift or the mandate from the annual strategic planning was to, okay, do more in Congo, less in America, right? You can have last year’s chart and this year’s chart side by side, showing that you’re actually moving the needle in the way that was agreed upon, et cetera, et cetera.

So having more data visualization, I think, can definitely help in that way.

Bill Shander: It definitely can. And it brings up a really very nuanced point.

It sort of refers back to the question you asked earlier: where can you sort of go wrong? And like the example you just described is perfect. So we had this mandate, we’re supposed to be doing a little bit, you know, more in the Congo. How do we do? So I show last year’s chart and this year’s chart, as you just said. And that sounds like exactly the right call. Last year’s chart, this year’s chart.

Yeah, this one looks a little bit bigger that way. This one looks a little bit smaller that way. That may be the right answer. You could also make the case, rather than show last year’s chart and this year’s chart, I’m going to show a completely different chart. The chart I’m really going to show is the change from last year to this year in the Congo’s percentage of funding. A subtle change in just how I phrased it might lead me to a completely different chart.

Rather than two pie charts, I might be showing more like what’s called a Sankey diagram, like a flow diagram showing the Congo share growing over time. And so, like the idea that

Storytelling and really thinking very carefully how you’re phrasing and presenting the ideas you’re sharing, literally the words you use will lead you to a different visual, which will, by the way, then lead your audience to a greater understanding of that story you’re telling.

So you can go really wrong by picking the wrong chart, saying the wrong thing, phrasing it the wrong way, and, you know, therefore leading to the wrong visual or design or whatever else. But even a slight tweak changes everything. Choose your words carefully, really nail your story down. What do I really want to tell my audience? What do they really need from me, by the way, right now? And then that’ll guide everything you do after that. So in, you know, in very subtle, nuanced ways.

David Pisarek: I love that idea, right? Showing, all right, here is what the growth actually was and showcasing that. That’s an interesting approach for sure. Awesome.

So you have a book, Stakeholder Whispering. What does that mean for a non-profit, and how could leaders better understand what their donors and stakeholders actually need to hear?

Bill Shander: Yeah, so Stakeholder Whispering, and the subtitle is Uncover What People Need Before Doing What They Ask.

And so, the example for a non-profit leader is that their board asks them for their impact reporting. Maybe it’s annually, maybe it’s quarterly, whatever it is. And okay, well, what do they really need from me? Do they want me to just regurgitate all of the numbers, all the things that we’ve measured all year long? And the same way I’ve done that for the last 10 years? Or this year, this quarter, might the board have a particular interest in mind?

Oh, wait a second, I remember David mentioning just recently that the board this year had given me a new mandate to grow our impact in the Congo specifically. So I bet I should really focus on our impact in the Congo this year in a slightly different way.

So stakeholder whispering is recognizing that we’re not order takers. We shouldn’t just jump to it and do what we’ve always done the same way we’ve always done it, or, you know, execute immediately on the request as it comes in. We really need to understand what our audiences need from us.

The way we do that is the whispering. And the whispering process is essentially asking a lot of questions, right? And, you know, that sounds like something that we do all the time. Of course, obviously I ask questions, and then I learn the answer, and that’s called, you know, needs assessment or requirements gathering, however you want to label it. But it’s actually not that.

What I have found in my 30+ years of doing this work is that I ask my clients questions, and yes, I will also learn the answer. I will be the learner when I ask them questions. But more importantly, as a consultant, my job is to ask them questions so that they can learn. I am helping them discover for themselves what they’re asking of me.

So if I were a non-profit leader, and my board says, ‘Okay, give us the numbers. You know, we’re having a meeting next week, and we want to see what’s going on.’ Oh, okay. ‘You know, non-profit board, tell me, what is it? What’s important to you right now? What are you particularly interested in?’ Well, you know, obviously it’s all about the Congo growth, but you know, also, you know, the way tariffs are going, it’s affecting our donors, you know, the way politics is these days, dollars coming into US non-profits, their focus may be very different from what you expect and think it’s going to be.

And so when you ask them questions, ‘Well, tell me why you think we should focus on this. Is it only about the Congo or might it be about, you know, international relations and other issues?’ ‘Oh yeah. You know what, actually,’ and what just happened is a magical moment. ‘Oh, wait, hold on. Yeah. I forgot about the whole international craziness going on right now and how, you know, everybody’s pulling money out of this country and putting it into this, you know? Yeah. Hold on. I think we need to add a section about X.’ And

so that magical moment when they say, ‘Oh, I hadn’t thought about it that way,’ you have helped them. You’ve sort of guided them to an insight. That’s the magic of the stakeholder whispering. You’re helping them realize for themselves what they really need from you. And therefore, yes, you will also know that and then do better work.

Kind of a long explanation, but hopefully that helps.

David Pisarek: It totally does. And I think that a lot of times people, like if your director or VP is coming to you saying, ‘I need the numbers, I’m meeting tomorrow,’ like, nobody ever really takes a pause for a second, says, ‘Okay, what numbers do you need? Why do you need these? Right? Is there something better that I can give you that will help you with whatever?’

I think it’s okay to say, ‘Hold on, hold on. Can we talk about this? Do you have 2 minutes? Like, let’s just have a quick conversation about this.’ And I wish I had done that at points in my career. And I’m sure that people listening to this episode,

I hope that they can take that and feel empowered enough to ask the question, ‘Why? Or what is it you’re trying to achieve with this?’ So that you can deliver something that might be more meaningful, more impactful, more helpful.

Bill Shander: Absolutely. And maybe it’s in addition to the normal stuff that you always do. And/or you may remove this section here, that no one ever looks at, hasn’t been relevant for 3 years, but we still keep including it in there. So maybe I can waste less time with this and put more time into that. And it’s actually, you know, it’s better for everybody.

David Pisarek: If a non-profit improved just, let’s say, one thing about how they present their impact on their website this year, or maybe social media, what should that be?

Bill Shander: You know, it’s such a hard question to answer only because there are pieces to it. First of all, you’ve got to do your stakeholder whispering.

It’s going on social media. Okay, well, who’s my audience on social media? What are my organization’s goals for my social media account? Is it just to raise awareness? Is it to get young people excited about this topic? Is it to literally raise dollars? Like, what are my actual goals? Gotta figure that out first. Then, based on that, okay, and social media, and if the— I understand my goals are directly fundraising and increasing dollar amounts.

Okay, what are the things that are going to increase the dollar amounts? Can I look at research to say which is more likely to raise money, or less likely? And then deliver content that directly produces those results. Because maybe I’ll do like fun TikTok videos, you know, they get more subscribers to my social channel, but if that doesn’t translate into more dollars coming in for donations, then guess what? I failed.

So, you know, better stakeholder whispering and then really targeted content and ideas, whether it’s visual and telling stories that are directly related to those goals for that channel.

So component answer, unfortunately, but, you know, good stakeholder whispering and also very channel focus because every audience is different. And in the end, the answer is somewhat the same: tell good stories and make them visual to really make it work. But each one of those stories is going to be different.

David Pisarek: I love that idea, you know, really getting to the root of what the goal is, what are the primary, secondary, tertiary goals that you’ve got, and then figuring out how you can achieve that, right? Getting more people to your website is meaningless if it’s not turning into dollars, especially when your goal is to actually raise more donations, right? So there are a lot of nuanced parts, exactly to your point.

Bill Shander: Yeah, and TikTok may be really good at delivering website visits, but LinkedIn may be really good at raising money. Does that mean we should abandon TikTok? Maybe. We should probably talk about it, but it certainly means I’m going to behave differently on LinkedIn versus TikTok, and maybe I can work on my TikTok to become more of a fundraising tool. I just have to think about how to do it.

It’s nuanced, it’s complex, but you gotta stop and pause and think about it.

David Pisarek: Love that. And we just did that recently in my agency. We went through and went, okay, what are all of our marketing efforts that we’re doing? What’s paying off? What should we focus more on? Less?

Bill Shander: More on?

David Pisarek: What should we amalgamate and merge? What should we stop doing? What should we start doing? And it’s a really interesting process to go through. We spent probably about half a day going through and reviewing everything.

So give yourself the time to be able to sit down and do that. If you’re by yourself, okay. If you’re like a solo person, if you have a team, bring everybody together and have a conversation, but do some of that initial stuff first so everybody’s not just sitting there trying to figure out what is it that we’re doing, right? Come to the table with stuff already prepared.

Bill Shander: Can I actually ask you a question about that?

David Pisarek: Sure.

Bill Shander: When you came out of that half a day, what percentage would you say of this we know for sure we’re going to change this, do this differently, etc.? This percentage, we don’t even know what’s working or not working, so we’re going to keep trying to figure that one out. And this one, like, we’re totally clueless, we’re not even sure what about? Like, you know, were you— did you come out like 100% like, ‘we know what we’re doing’ or was there a lot of still gray area?

David Pisarek: We had been talking on and off about it for probably about 4 months or 5 months. So my goal was to come out of it going, ‘Okay, this is the path forward for this year, and we’re going to monitor in 6 months and then revisit.’ So we were, we were very clear, I would say probably 75 or 80%. ‘Okay, we’re doing this’ because we had all the data, we have all the statistics, we’re posting on Instagram and TikTok and this channel and that channel and our email, and we have the data from it because all those platforms that we’re using, there’s analytics behind them all, and we can track that.

And so we, we had the data to make some what we hope are the right smart decisions, but we’re going to be monitoring it over time and revisit in, uh, well, 5 months now is, is when we’re going to take a look at that again.

Bill Shander: Very cool.

David Pisarek: Yeah, Bill, amazing insights around data storytelling, how to leverage it, stakeholder communication, building trust through clarity, stakeholder whispering.

I hope that people listening to this episode have been able to get some really great advice and pointers. I know I’ve got one or two little tidbits that I made some notes of as, as you were talking that I’m going to take back to our clients over here. And internally, I like to kind of throw— I’m not going to say under the bus at the end, but give a bit of a challenge to my guests that you probably aren’t ready for. So let’s see how this goes.

If you were to give everybody a challenge, something that you want them to do in the next 24 or 48 hours after listening to this episode, what would that challenge be?

Bill Shander: I like that. I think in the context of what we’re talking about, I would say go to the last thing you produced that falls in the category of what we’re talking about, you know, your annual report or a PowerPoint presentation for a meeting or something along those lines. And think about what was the biggest challenge that you faced in that presentation? You know, we couldn’t figure out how to present these numbers. We couldn’t figure out really how to have an impact in this way. Rethink that one thing.

Literally take a 5-minute exercise. Forget about— don’t try to visualize it. Don’t try to, you know, think about how you would do it technically. Rephrase the story that you would tell for that one challenging thing in 30 seconds, meaning create an elevator pitch, a 30-second explanation in words of what you wish you had said and how you would set it.

From that elevator pitch of words, the rest of the story, the visuals and all the rest of it can be built. So the elevator pitch is key. I always encourage people to sort of start there. So, rethink the elevator pitch of one of those challenges you’ve worked on recently.

David Pisarek: Love that challenge. I’m going to do that over here, too. If anybody wants to get in touch with you, what do they need to do?

Bill Shander: You can always find me on LinkedIn and, of course, on my website, billshander.com.

David Pisarek: Awesome. And you have an e-book preview of Stakeholder Whispering that we could link from our show notes.

Bill Shander: Yeah, if people sign up for my mailing list, they will get the e-book preview, and the book is on Amazon and everywhere else books are sold. And yeah, I’d love to— if anybody does get a chance to look through it, I’d love to hear what you think.

David Pisarek: Bill, thank you so much for joining us. It’s been great having you here on the Non-profit Digital Success Podcast. To everybody listening, if you want the resources, the link to Bill, etc., etc., just head over to our podcast page at nonprofitdigitalsuccess.com. Click on this episode for all the details.

And until next time, keep on being successful!