The ‘So What’ Factor: Making Your Case Compelling

This article has been compiled from material written by Kate Smith (of Goosegrass Culture), for the Rebuilding Heritage training programme, ran by The Heritage Alliance.

Read the original article here.

Can you answer the ‘so what’ question?

Applying this question will help you to determine if something that seems a self-evident good to you, will also seem like a good idea to your funder.

“The roof is in a bad state and leaks” — so what? “We are preserving a 500-year-old building” — so what? “We have a very narrow set of the population as visitors” — so what?

A worked example: why fix your heritage site’s leaking roof?

In the case of a leaking roof, the self-evident good involved in repairing it may be different, depending on the funder.

For example:

• For a funder with the charitable aim of preserving the fabric of ancient buildings, you may want to emphasise the qualities of the roof itself (perhaps its original 18th century tiles) and the wider structure that it protects.
• For a funder more focused on collections, concentrate on the fragile and invaluable archive which the roof protects. Which collections will deteriorate, and what narrative about their value will convince?
• For those more concerned about outreach and community, the focus is on the welcome you might give these people if your rooms were not so musty and damp.
• Some will want to create more financially self-sustaining heritage organisations — for these, you might point to the weddings or corporates you could host in a less leaky, more attractively maintained site.

Addressing these aspects can make you less of a square peg in a round hole — and help to build a case in ‘grey area’ applications. The features of the problem need to be expanded into benefits.

In this case:

Feature: Mending the roof. Benefit: Re-admit public, restart events and generate income.

The effect is to give a sense of the transformation the funding will have on your organisation. Lay the current situation out clearly, as well as the power the funder wields to help you arrive at a better place. Storytelling has an important role in this.

The Importance of Storytelling

Funders are only human and will react more strongly if your logical case for support is underpinned by a more emotional narrative. Wherever you can, use a quote or example — and remember that a story can often be captured in a couple of lines. You might want to draw from:

• Stories about your founder, or founding need
• Those who visit you
• Lifetime members
• Volunteers
• Your specialist staff and interesting details of their work.

The essential difference between emotion and reason is that emotion leads to action and reason leads to conclusions.

– Donald Caine, Neurologist.

In short, your application should contain both reason and emotion. Giving comes from an emotional place — and having brought your funder to the verge of wanting to support through your logical arguments, you can then tip them over into saying ‘yes’ with storytelling that gives your application life and heart.

This mix will also give you the edge when a funder has a range of good applications and needs to choose from a set that all meet their core criteria.