Talking Big Picture with Storyraise CEO Josh Kligman

By Ori Amiel

Josh Kligman has worn almost every marketing hat: researcher, writer, strategist, fundraiser. After 20 years working in marketing for both corporations and nonprofits, he noticed many were trying to solve the same problem over and over again: create high-quality content that inspires their donors without demanding so much time from their employees.

Annual reports, social media campaigns, fundraising emails — all can take weeks or months. To help nonprofits streamline and enhance their creative processes, he co-founded Storyraise, where he serves as chief executive officer.

Storyraise has been offering easy and effective ways for nonprofits to produce digital reports and campaigns. Now, with AI and other technological advancements, Josh is looking to position Storyraise as the leader for nonprofit impact report solutions.

I spoke with Josh about his work experience and the future of Storyraise in the nonprofit world. Here are highlights from our conversation.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How has your experience with large companies like AOL translated into your work at Storyraise?

My past experience has significantly influenced my work here, as account management for both for-profit and nonprofit organizations involves finding effective solutions to solve problems. At AOL, for example, my focus was on creating strategies to increase engagement across ad platforms and drive ad revenue, a skill we now apply to engaging donors using similar methods. For example, we think about how we can give donors an impact storytelling experience online that they can’t get anywhere else. Being creative, resourceful and tenacious is also essential, given the high competition and numerous distractions consumers and donors face. A key difference in the nonprofit sector is the frequent opportunity to express gratitude, which enhances brand awareness, contrasting with much of the public relations and social impact work in the corporate world.

What inspired you to develop products that ease the nonprofit workload?

Much of my background is in nonprofit marketing. I have firsthand experience with the pain points faced by nonprofits, particularly in developing impact reports and blogs that effectively showcase how their work has been impactful. Demonstrating a return on investment through stories is crucial, yet tracking this can be challenging without the aid of web-based marketing and fundraising tools. This inspired me to help create Storyraise and to ease the workload faced by nonprofits, ensuring they can highlight their impact more efficiently and effectively.

How do you think technological advancements over the next five years will affect how you market Storyraise products?

Technological advancements will significantly shape how we market Storyraise products, primarily how we continue to prioritize customer input. Currently, around 75% of our features are driven by customer feedback, and listening to customer needs dictates our development and launch strategies. For instance, we never initially planned to offer digital reports as PDFs, but customer demand led us to create more convenient and versatile reports, both for digital use and print as a PDF. Although it took about a year and a half to perfect much of our existing technology, the outcome has greatly benefited our customers. 

We’re also already effectively utilizing AI, not just in a general sense, but in ways that directly enhance our customers’ experience. Our AI tools, like Magik, provide nonprofits with a head start while allowing them to tweak, change and personalize their reports as needed. We definitely have many more innovative ideas, but we first have to ensure they align with what our customers truly want.

When building a Storyraise Report, users have options to include multimedia. How do photos, videos and other forms of multimedia create a more immersive and engaging report?

In the nonprofit world, using different forms of media is invaluable for grabbing donors’ attention and sharing interesting, specific stories. Text and photos alone often fall short in creating engaging content, so allowing integration of media, like videos and social media posts, are excellent complementary tools for storytelling. More traditional formats, like PDFs and flipbooks, are particularly challenging on mobile devices, requiring excessive pinching and zooming, which detracts from the user experience. Given that more than half of donors access these materials on their cell phones, multimedia not only enhances engagement but also provides a more accessible and effective way to convey the necessary information.

Looking ahead, what are your big-picture goals for Storyraise?

I want us to solidify our position as a leading solution for nonprofits, schools and foundations to build digital reports. We aim to enhance personalization through automation and continue to be the top resource for nonprofits in this area. Expanding our reach to nonprofits across new industries and countries is a priority, as is incorporating more multimedia elements into our reports to further enrich the storytelling experience.