the conviction that gives your story its reason to exist.
Example
A food security nonprofit whose founder grew up hungry. She never mentions it. Her story talks about supply chains and smallholder farmers — technically accurate, completely bloodless. The conviction is real but invisible.
Why does this work need to exist — and what is it about you specifically that makes you the right person to do it?
30 characters minimum
Reading your answer...
02 / Doing
DOING
the concrete details of your work that give the story depth.
Example
A workforce development organization that does intensive one-on-one coaching with every graduate for six months after placement. Nobody knows because their narrative stops at job placement. The most compelling part of the work has never made it into the story.
What does your organization do that most people who support you have never heard about?
30 characters minimum
Reading your answer...
03 / Saying
SAYING
the story you're currently telling, and whether it produces feeling in the listener.
Example
A foundation that describes its grantmaking strategy with precision and clarity — and whose program officers all describe it differently the moment they're in a room without a slide deck.
How do you describe what you do — and when you say it, do people understand with their head or with their heart?
30 characters minimum
Reading your answer...
04 / Proof
PROOF
the version of your story that moves a listener to act — to refer, to fund, to follow, to tell someone else.
Example
An ED who has a polished two-minute pitch that gets polite responses — and once, running late and flustered, told a board prospect "we're the only organization in this city that has never lost a family to the street twice." That person wrote a check the next week.
When has someone heard about your work and immediately done something — referred you, introduced you, told someone else — and what did you say?
30 characters minimum
Reading your answer...
05 / Center
CENTER
The single true thing your organization can say with its whole chest, to anyone, in any room, that makes the right people immediately want to get closer.
What do you know about your organization that the world hasn't fully understood yet?
