How to elicit testimonials that get donors giving

Review your aims and objectives

Your organisation's aims and objectives should be in the back of your mind when drafting questions for beneficiaries who are willing to provide a testimonial. They are an excellent springboard for crafting questions that will get your beneficiaries to share specific details about their experiences (and your outcomes).

Who, what, when and where

Whether it's through email or a face-to-face interview, ask these types of questions first. They will help focus the beneficiary's thinking and will make the task of giving a testimonial less overwhelming and more specific.

Some example questions could be:

• What programme, service etc have you found the most helpful?
• When did you use this programme/service and why?
• What situations/issues did this programme/service help you with?

'Painting-a-mental picture' questions

Now, choose one or two of those programmes/services (if they provide a number of them) and focus on them. Ask the beneficiary to describe in detail a specific moment in which they were helped and empowered. Tell them their answer should paint a picture in someone's mind.

It's also important to ask the beneficary to share the thoughts and feelings they were experiencing in that moment.

Here's a good question to start with:

• Can you tell me about a specific moment in which this service/programme helped you? 

Some subsidiary questions could be:

• What was the situation? Where were you? (And other questions to get details on place, setting and location)
• Who helped you? What did they do? (And other questions to get details on the specific form of the help they received)
• How did you feel when you had the problem you had? (Phrase question according to specific beneficiary experience)
• How did the help you received resolve the problem?

The final clincher question

End with the following question:

• If you were to speak face-to-face with the donors who helped fund this change in your life, what would you say?

Their response could be a powerful way to connect your donors directly to people who their support has helped.

Putting it all together: storytelling and narrative

You now want to sort through the information and weave their answers into a flowing narrative that applies basic donor-gripping storytelling principles.

One powerful writing tool for making the most of testimonials is the 'Show! Don't Tell!' technique. Use the details provided by the beneficiary to paint a vivid word-picture in a donor's mind. You can do this by using the 'Show! Don't Tell!' Brainstorming Tool.

Examples

Here are some examples of how charities are using testamonials:

• Welsh homeless charity The Wallich - who we help
• Mencap: Camilla's circle of support
• Action for Children - How your money helps