Marketing and fundraising stories are not interchangeable, and naming that distinction is exactly what many of us in faith-based, program-centered work have been groping toward without language.
When “one impact story” isn’t enough
In his post, "The difference between fundraising and marketing stories," article, Derrick Feldmann writes that “an impact-based narrative suffices for both functions, in the name of consistency and cost-effectiveness,” but quickly adds that “in best practice, however, it’s important to distinguish between marketing and fundraising narratives.”
That sentence alone describes so many churches and ministries that have one go-to story and simply swap the call to action depending on whether they are talking to donors, pastors, volunteers, or program participants.
On the surface, that feels efficient and even faithful: “We’re just sharing what God has done.” But within the systems we work on, many of us can see the cracks.
The same story is being asked to:
- Shift public understanding of a complex social issue.
- Help a potential participant discern, “Is this for me?”
- Move a donor to make a first or increased gift.
- Equip a current advocate to speak to their own network.
When one story is trying to do all of that at once, it usually does none of it particularly well.
Feldmann’s definitions, through a program lens
Feldmann offers clear definitions that are worth quoting in full:
“The marketing narrative = Building awareness, educating the public or target audiences, changing biases and attitudes, and inciting new behaviors.”
“The fundraising narrative = Developing resources, supporter knowledge, awareness, and actions for peer engagement to raise dollars.”
Identifying the Two Jobs-to-Be-Done
If you’re building a program-centered Marketing OS, it’s almost like he’s describing two distinct “jobs to be done” for your stories:
- One kind of story helps a person see how the issue affects them and shows a path to engage with the solution.
- The other kind of story shows them how their giving can fund that work.
Those are related, but not the same job.
One is about personal engagement with the issue and the ministry’s response; the other is about financial and relational investment to help the response grow.
How his four components echo ReadySetMIWI's approach
Feldmann describes four main components of a social issue marketing narrative:
- Relevance (“how this issue affects me”)
- A single crucial piece of new knowledge
- An attitude/bias statement
- And a participatory call to action that helps the audience internalize the issue and act
That sounds very much like the early stages of a program journey:
- Helping someone see themselves in the problem
- Learn something new
- Confront a default belief
- And then take a small, concrete step toward engagement
He then lays out the fundraising narrative with a different emphasis: relevance at the population level, knowledge in the form of a beneficiary story, donor impact (“how resources from individual donors like the reader or user affect the individual or population being served”), and a donation call to action. That maps closely to the later stages of the journey you design: demonstrating credible impact, clarifying the donor’s role, and providing a focused, time-bound way for them to respond.
In other words, Feldmann is giving structural language to what many of your program-centered diagrams already imply:
The stories that move someone toward participation are not identical to the stories that move them toward investment.
Why this matters for your Marketing OS
One line in the article is particularly helpful for operational work:
“The two functions of marketing and fundraising are more often united than in the past―which is a great strategy, but each remains distinctive regardless of where it is on the organization chart.”
Many ministries have already put “Comms & Development” together on paper but haven’t yet clarified how stories function differently inside that shared space.
Your Marketing OS is where that distinction can live in a practical way:
- In your pipelines and journeys, you can literally label touchpoints as primarily marketing or primarily fundraising, even when they share a common case for support.
- In your story repository, you can tag stories based on whether they illustrate the issue, the transformation journey of a participant, or the leverage created by donor investment.
- In your briefs, you can ask the Feldmann question up front: Is this narrative being asked to change attitudes and behavior around the issue, or to develop resources and peer engagement to raise dollars?
That doesn’t silo teams; it gives them a shared, mission-aligned vocabulary for collaboration.
Toward a more intentional “both/and.”
Feldmann concludes that “fundraising and marketing narratives today must complement and support each other,” noting that fundraising relies on the awareness and knowledge marketing generates, while marketing benefits from supporting fundraising with “deeper connections and longer-lasting awareness.”
For faith-based, program-centered organizations, that complementarity is not just strategic; it’s theological.
If we believe that God is at work in both the transformation of people and the provision of resources, then we should expect our narratives to honor both without collapsing them into one generic “impact story.”
- Marketing stories invite people to see, feel, and enter into the redemptive work on the ground.
- Fundraising stories invite them to underwrite and multiply that work for the sake of others they may never meet.
The reflection this article prompts, then, is simple but challenging:
In our nonprofit, have we given our stories clear jobs?
Or are we still asking one story to carry the weight of every outcome we hope for?
Naming the difference between marketing and fundraising narratives is a small step structurally—but it can be a big step toward more honest, effective, and mission-true communication.