The Influential Nonprofit Episode 70: Maria Bryan: Trauma Informed Storytelling
About Maria Bryan: She equips nonprofit leaders with the quality training, tools, and 1:1 support needed to thrive as change agents — through consultation sessions and group workshops on creating simple but powerful nonprofit marketing strategies. Because she believes that marketing doesn’t have to be an obstacle course.
If your target audience would be people who have been through trauma, you have to think about structuring your message in a way that they feel safe, protected, and are not re-traumatized by your content.
It’s worth it to invest time, effort and money into learning how to create marketing through a trauma lens. It’s not only ethical, but it opens the doors for your nonprofit organization to be able to communicate better to the people you want to reach out to.
Telling your story is a huge part of healing, it’s important that we give people the space to be able to speak freely about their traumatic experience. However, always remember that people don’t owe you their story. You have to make sure that they fully and enthusiastically consent to telling their stories and that they are in no way shape or form, pressured to tell it.
It’s important to go through the framework of understanding pain points and understanding what's at stake because if you know what the stakes are then you know what the bright future is. If you know what the pain points are, then you know what the hope is.
Victims aren't asked for solutions. And that's really, really important for marketers, to know that we have the power to - give the people whose stories we're telling agency and power - dignify and respect them through the stories we’re telling.
It's such a new space in the nonprofit marketing communications fundraising world to come at this through a trauma lens. Stories will always be powerful. It is stories that move hearts and change minds, and in turn change lives. So anyone listening to this that feels overwhelmed by just one more lens. In the nonprofit space, it's doable, just take it one step at a time.
The people that you serve don't owe you their story. It's not part of the deal. Make sure that you have informed consent from people who are telling their stories.
Reach out to Maria Bryan at:
Website: https://www.mariabryan.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariabryancrtv/
Instagram: https://instagram.com/mariabryancrtv
BE MORE CONFIDENT, CREDIBLE & CONVINCING TO YOUR BOARD & SUPPORTERS WITHOUT FEELING REJECTED, INEFFECTIVE, OR PUSHY.
Learn to manage your mindset, lead yourself and others more effectively and have the meaningful conversations that drive your most important work.