412-SYB-Ashley-Vann.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Carol Cox:
If you’re looking to use storytelling to promote your business or your nonprofit, you’re going to get so much out of my conversation with Ashley Vann on this episode of the Speaking Your Brand podcast. More and more women are making an impact by starting businesses, running for office, and speaking up for what matters. With my background as a TV political analyst, entrepreneur, and speaker, I interview and coach purpose driven women to shape their brands, grow their companies, and become recognized as influencers in their field. This is speaking your brand, your place to learn how to persuasively communicate your message to your audience. Hi there and welcome to the Speaking Your Brand podcast. I’m your host, Carol Cox. Today we are digging into the power of storytelling, but from some unusual angles that I don’t think we’ve covered explicitly on this podcast before. So I’m excited to talk to my guest, Ashley Vann, who is the founder of Victory Cup initiative, which is based in the Orlando, Central Florida area where we both live. And earlier this year, I had the pleasure of attending their annual breakfast. It was the first time I had ever attended. I was invited by a woman who has been involved in it, quite active in it, and so she extended the invitation to me and I got there. It was this beautiful venue, Doctor Phillips in Orlando, and it was full, entirely full with people. But what was so special about it was that each non-profit who had the opportunity to address the audience only had a couple of minutes to tell a story about their nonprofit, and then we all got to vote on who we wanted the the fundraising to go to no place one, two and three and so on. And it was such an incredible experience. It was such a great way to showcase the power of storytelling, especially for nonprofits. So of course, I’ve gotten to know Ashley this year, and so I invited her on the podcast to dig into storytelling, both for nonprofits but also for your business and for your personal brand. Ashley, welcome to the podcast.
Ashley Vann:
Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here.
Carol Cox:
Well, I am too. So tell us about Victory Cup initiative. Tell us a little bit more about what it does and then what you do at the annual breakfast.
Ashley Vann:
Okay. So Victory Cup is about inspiring excellence in our community, one story at a time. And what that means is we really believe that everybody wants to be a part of something bigger than themselves, bigger than their jobs, bigger than their everyday life. And they can achieve that by getting involved in the nonprofit community, and that we are all surrounded by men and women who have a lot going on in their lives, and they’re doing really incredible work every day to just really care for our community’s most vulnerable. So each year, the Victory Cup, we have an application period, and we’ll get typically anywhere between 80 to 100 applications and we select ten nonprofit organizations. We work with those nonprofit organizations over a period of about four months with seven different coaches, and we teach them how to tell their story of impact. Now, if you’re anything like me, you have a very short attention span. And so we try to get those leaders to really hone their messaging in 100 or 50s or less. And it ends up being about 2.5 minutes. And so we work with the leaders. We train them. This year we’re doing something a little bit different where we have a couple of leadership training sessions for them as well.
Ashley Vann:
And then this year on February 25th, 2025, at the Doctor Phillips Performing Arts Center, we’ll have an audience full of about 600 business leaders, community champions who all gather to hear these stories of impact. And after the 23.5 minute program, everyone in the room pulls out their phone and they’re invited to vote via text for the non-profit organization that they feel like did the best. And we give away prizes first $30,000, second place $25,000, and third place $20,000 to the top nonprofits. But we like to say that everybody leaves a winner. And so all four through ten nonprofits will walk away with a cash prize. And that we really feel like by hearing these stories, it creates an enormous amount of pride for the men and women who are attending the breakfast, because they’re learning about work that they had no idea was happening in their own community, and they’re instantly introduced. Like I said to men and women who are on the front lines of caring for people in our community that might be hurting or are just in a bad situation. So that’s the Victory Cup initiative. Um, and yes, that’s it.
Carol Cox:
Well, I really appreciated hearing their stories, and it’s such a skill that you’re helping them to develop by putting them through all these trainings and the coaching that they get in order to deliver that 2.5 minute story pitch. And I was so impressed by them that actually one of them, Theresa Smith Levin of Central Florida Vocal Arts, she did her story and I made a little note, and I found her in the hallway. Afterwards, I invited her on to this podcast, and she was on earlier this year, episode 386. So that is the impact of storytelling. Now, Ashley, I know when we chatted a little while ago, you told me the origin story of Victory Cup and really about storytelling because you said that you were in an like an executive leadership class, and there were a lot of other nonprofit leaders in there, and you had this realization. Can you tell us about that?
Ashley Vann:
Oh, absolutely. I had the the fortune of taking classes at the Edith Busch Institute, which is the nonprofit thought leader, um, school here in Central Florida, and sitting in the classroom, sitting alongside 12 to 15 nonprofit leaders. Usually at every program, they would go around and introduce themselves, and I would hear people introduce themselves and they would say the most incredible things that I had never heard before. Um, you know, a man who might be wanting to help veterans who were struggling with mental health issues or who may have been homeless, or a woman who wanted to help, um, moms who might be going through different, um, social and mental issues, or someone who was very passionate about caring for children with cancer. And as I got to meet these men and women, I quickly it quickly became evident to me they weren’t doing it for prestige. They weren’t doing it for the pay. They weren’t doing it for the benefits, but they were doing it because they really cared about this one population, about this one niche of our community. And I thought to myself, you know, there are thousands of business leaders in our community who want to hear these stories.
Ashley Vann:
They want to meet these people, but everyone’s just so busy. Right. Who isn’t busy right now? And we’re all busy taking care of our children, taking care of our parents, building our own careers, and just sort of. What if. What if we created an exciting opportunity where we got business leaders and nonprofit leaders together, and we created an opportunity for the for the business leaders to hear these stories. But it was also very important to create an atmosphere where the leaders would not be asked. The leaders could just come and listen and decide on their own what they wanted to do with this incredible information. So that’s how the Victory Cup was born. We launched our first year was 2016. I think we had 260 people attend our breakfast, ten nonprofits pitched. We raised $52,000, we gave away $42,000. And I think 80% of the people in the audience said, oh my gosh, now we get it. We know what you were talking about this whole time.
Carol Cox:
Ashley. So if you think about, you know, you could have just had the nonprofits give a standard pitch, which they probably had been doing. It’s like, oh, so I started X, y, Z because I really wanted to help this particular type of group. And these are some of the services that we provide or whatever, like a standard pitch that a nonprofit or a business any of us would give. Why did you feel like storytelling was the key in order for what you the work that you were doing to have more of an impact?
Ashley Vann:
Um, well, I think in the nonprofit world to meet more donors or volunteers or potential board members, you really want to use data or story. And it’s a really great story. If you can figure out a way to use both data and story together. But a story is transformative. A story is a way to take you somewhere immediately. You actually have a physical reaction when you hear a great story and what I really love is when the nonprofit leader can come up with that soundbite, that quintessential phrase that tells everybody in the room exactly what they do and why that cause is so important. So, for example, the Adult Literacy League, our very first year, we got to work with them. And I remember one of their opening statements was, if you can’t read, you can’t fill out a job application. Well, right. Then that tells you how critically it like no matter what you say, if someone can’t read, they they’re not going to be able to get ahead. And so it’s really important for those stories to, um, it really connects people. I mean, I have another just example I would love to use. One of the things we do at Victory Cup is we love to connect people with causes that they care about, but they may not even know that they cared about or connect business leaders with different boards. Opportunities to serve on a board. And one morning I had invited a local attorney with a wealth planning practice to come meet one of our nonprofit leaders and she.
Ashley Vann:
During her Victory Cup speech, this person said there are 45,000 homeless people in Seminole County. And on your way to meet me this morning, you probably drove by 12 men, women or children that you did not even see. What a powerful statement, right? Well, fast forward when I took the woman to go meet this wealth planning attorney, and I and the woman said, tell me about your organization. Instead of saying what she just said about coming to meet me. She said, well, we were founded in 1970. So, so and so and so and so and so and so and so. Well, immediately they lost the person. Right? Um, and we hear stories like that all the time. And so we’re trying to talk to the nonprofit leaders like forget about um, the how many and think about the who and the why. You know not instead of like how many meals you’ve served or how many people you’ve helped. Instead, think about the woman who had been incarcerated for 30 years and you taught her how to read and write, and all of a sudden, this woman who would never be getting out of this, the justice system, felt a freedom that she’s never experienced before through writing and reading, all through the Adult Literacy League. That’s something that can get me excited and makes me want to take action.
Carol Cox:
I love those example, Ashley, because they showed the specificity of the stories, and I know a lot of times when we work with our clients and a lot of people feel like that a specific story is less relatable than a more than a more specific story. So they kind of like make it more generic or they generalize it, or I say like they smooth out the edges of it because they feel like if they just kind of share a generic story or an anecdote that’s more relatable. But I’m like, no, no, no, it’s actually the opposite, because the more detailed you are with your story, even though it seems counterintuitive, the more the person will remember it. And, like you said, have some type of emotional reaction to it. I always use this quote by Sue Monk Kidd, which says that she said, the deeper we go into our own experience, the more we hit the universal experience. So like you’re talking about those 12 people that you passed on the drive today who are homeless, or the incarcerated woman who was taught to read like those things stick in our mind as visual images because they’re so specific versus, yes, there are homeless people out there who need homes. Okay. But but that doesn’t like that. Nothing pops into my mind when I hear that.
Ashley Vann:
Absolutely. And I remember one year we had this incredible storyteller, we had this older gentleman, and he was part of the program, and he had this great story and the story that he was telling was the story of a million teenagers that his organization serves. And so when he would get up to tell the story, he would always say, I’m going to tell you a story about. And then he would say, say, Jennifer. And then he would proceed to tell the story. And I said, when you when you don’t know the person’s name, you’re not dignifying who you’re talking about, and you’re not connecting me to the teenager whose name might have been Tiffany, who lived over in South Orlando and was struggling because she went to this high school. And this was the issue. And as long as you get that person’s, you know, permission, it’s so much. It’s so important to be using specific details. 1,000%.
Carol Cox:
Yes. Yeah. I always say given them a name, you could even say like, you know, I’ll call her Tiffany if you want to make sure that you’re not revealing any unidentified or, you know, things that maybe people could figure out. But yes, I totally agree with you about giving names and details and setting the scene for all that. Now, one thing we talked about during our coffee chat is that you mentioned about when we were talking about storytelling structures, and there’s lots of different storytelling frameworks and structures out there. And you said that one thing that we need to be careful of, especially say, at your event where you are having ten nonprofits go in a row that you don’t want it to come across as formulaic, where they’re all kind of starting the same like the beginning, middle and end. So it all feels like some type of structure that they’ve all been given, because by the fourth or fifth one, the audience is going to be like, okay, we know what’s coming next. So can you talk to us a little bit about kind of balancing structure and novelty? When we think about sharing, whether it’s a pitch for something or about sharing stories in our presentations?
Ashley Vann:
Well, I think that’s a great point. I think whenever you’re sharing a story, you don’t want to be pitchy. I think the beauty of sharing a story really well is that you come across as an expert. And so you don’t need to pitch. And I think sharing a story is about trying to identify who the who, what is resonating in your story with the audience member. And when I say audience member, I mean one on one, like if I’m talking to you and I’m sharing this incredible story with you, I’m hoping that it’s going to just create authentic communication between the two of us. So sharing a story and then ending it with a pitch is never a good idea. And I think when you come across someone and you share a story and they connect with you and there is no pitch, then the reward is greater than anything you could have ever imagined, because you’re giving them an opportunity to explore, to sit back, to contemplate, to ask you questions. And and I say this all the time. Someone might come to the Victory Cup, and most of the time they get out of the ten stories there, 7 or 8 of the organizations there never have even heard of.
Ashley Vann:
And some of the causes are things that they could have never even imagined. A few years ago, we heard a story about a young teenage girl and how her father had stolen her identity. Well, when you first hear that, that sounds so terrible to you. But if you think about a struggling parent who would do anything for their children, an endless upon endless credit card appeals come to your home and you’re looking for some way out. You can see how it’s no longer a crime, but it was a strategy to serve this man’s family better. And I’m not saying that it was right, but I’m saying all of a sudden you’ve had a transformative moment to step outside of your life and to see something from another person’s perspective, from another walk of life. And it just made you a better human being. And what you decide to do with that information is totally up to you. And if you box me in with a pitch, you might lose the potential of a great reward.
Carol Cox:
It reminds me of the saying that people don’t like to be sold to, but they like to buy.
Ashley Vann:
100%.
Carol Cox:
Right? And so, like, I almost feel like as someone sharing a story is the beginning of a conversation rather than the end all be all of a conversation because, as you said, like you want the person hearing the story. Then to follow up with questions or to be intrigued and curious to want to know more.
Ashley Vann:
Yeah. And I mean, Carol, I would love to come back on your podcast at some point and just talk about fundraising, because that’s really a passion of mine, and that’s where the storytelling comes into play. But whenever talking to anyone, I always like to share what the biggest goal could potentially be, and then let that person decide how they want to play a role. Because in the nonprofit ecosystem, a volunteer is the greatest gift you could ever give an organization. And we just recently, after this year’s Victory Cup, we had a gentleman who had just recently retired. He came to us and he said, I would love to work with you all for 20 hours a week. I mean, we have gotten such incredible expertise, mentoring and advice from this gentleman. This is a gift that we could never afford to pay for. And so, um, and if I had just asked him for $5,000, instead of just being opening up the vision of Victory Cup, I might have lost that opportunity.
Carol Cox:
Oh, that is such a great example, right. Because you may be they may have so much more to offer, but they’re just going to just say, okay, that’s what you’re asking me for, then that’s what I’ll give. And they may not even voluntarily volunteer, so to speak, but, you know, offer other things.
Ashley Vann:
Mhm. 100%.Yeah.
Carol Cox:
That’s a great example. So thinking back again to this idea of balancing structure and novelty, and because I want to provide maybe some practical ideas for the listeners who are either running non-profits or businesses. And I think about it this way, because I can imagine you have a bunch of whether it’s nonprofits or even businesses, maybe they’re at some type of business event and they have to introduce themselves. And everyone starts off with the story the same way. Well, there was a time when I was X or I had this shocking moment when X, right? Like those kind of those common tropes that people use for storytelling. So I think about it, maybe you mentioned authenticity is like, think about like what was the emotional heart of that story for you? You know, you’re the one telling the story. And maybe think about what is a way to bring the audience in based on how you were feeling or where you were or what was going on at the time. That’s one idea. The other idea I often will use is playing with the story timeline. So sometimes starting at the beginning of the story, sometimes starting at the end or even starting in the middle of the story, and then backtracking back and then continuing on. So I don’t know if you ever played with any of those structures yourself, Ashley.
Ashley Vann:
Yeah. I mean, I think to really go to, um, I guess exercises for me is to help people immediately create their own story is to your point with when you’re in the nonprofit world and you’re working with a board or someone who wants to be a champion of your cause, they’ll say, well, do you have a flyer or can you help me with my pitch? And it’s more about tell me what it is about this organization that makes you proud. And if someone were to expand on I work at this company and I’m really proud of the work that we do because of blank. That’s going to open up a story about who that person is, what is the work that they do, and how does that individual, individual person contribute to the success of the organization. So that’s one tool that I use. Another real easy tool is the I believe. And that can sound a little bit Pollyanna, a little soft. But when people share with you what they believe, I mean, I personally am someone who my husband always says, you know, I always want to talk to people and go deep and hear their story and hear about what they’re thinking and what’s important to them. And my husband says, you know, not everybody wants to have this deep conversation. And I disagree with that. I feel like we all are kind of lonely and hurting, and we all want to feel safe, loved and heard. And that’s something that I believe in my core. And so if you’re able to talk to people and help them kind of figure out what is it that you believe and what is it that you’re doing that fuels your belief? That’s another great way to launch a Marcia story. Um, and kind of really just create more authentic conversation, which is what storytelling is all about.
Carol Cox:
Yes. And and that back and forth. Right. So it truly is a two way or multiple way conversation, not just one way.
Ashley Vann:
And you might not believe what the person believes, like you might. And that’s such a great way to exercise kindness and peace, right? Which is everybody wants to teach somebody else something. I think the question is also, what am I learning today? Right.
Carol Cox:
Oh, I love that. Yes, I definitely will keep that in mind. That’s a great way to think about it. What am I learning today?
Ashley Vann:
Yes. So I’ve worked with a lot of children over the last ten years. I mean, in my career with the nonprofit sector over the last, I guess, 10 or 11 years, I’ve worked with about 90 different nonprofit organizations. And it’s always when I’m working with children or teenagers or young adults, it’s always easy to find donors or community leaders or business leaders who want to teach the kids something. Well, I think the kids really just want someone to listen to who they are and what they’ve been through. So just a thought.
Carol Cox:
Oh my gosh, yes. That is so powerful Ashley. Definitely. Yeah. For all of all everyone listening, whatever you’re working with in your business, nonprofits, community organizations, that’s a great reminder. Now, one other thing that you mentioned to me, Ashley, during our coffee chat, which I really had never thought about in this way before, is that you said that and you mentioned this a little bit earlier, that storytelling can elicit a elicits emotions in us, you know, whether it’s we’re listening to someone else in person or we’re watching a movie or a TV show and we feel sad, or maybe we feel excited or we feel angry, whatever it happens to be. So storytelling elicits emotions. And then you said music actually does the same thing. So both storytelling and music are collective experiences that not only listed emotions in us, but can elicit the same emotions in people who are together.
Ashley Vann:
Right?
Carol Cox:
So it’s how like, yeah. So tell me more about that.
Ashley Vann:
Well, I mean, I’m definitely a woman of faith. And so that’s very important to me. But I do think I always say that music is the Holy Spirit. And I think storytelling and what I mean by that is it’s this energy that just brings everyone together. There is music that we could play and it could bring us all to tears, right? There’s also music. Think about the 4th of July and the music that’s being played throughout the day. No matter what you have that’s going on in your life, you all of a sudden have this enormous amount of pride in being an American and living in the United States of America. And you also have this enormous sense of gratitude. And it’s all because of, like, the Lee Greenwood song or the. I can’t think of the different artists right now, but it’s just really powerful. And I think a really great the Publix commercials, they can do that same thing to you, you know, where it just really centers you. And I think there’s something really powerful. I think it’s really critical to have the arts be a part of everything that we do, and I would hate for those to ever be lost in our community.
Carol Cox:
Yes, absolutely. Music you think of like, you know, like whether it’s a Mozart and classical music or even, you know, pop songs from when we grew up. Like they definitely bring back memories, nostalgia. You can probably remember where you were when that song was popular. So music can do so much. And and as we’ve been talking about, stories can as well. All right. Ashley. So yeah. Go ahead.
Ashley Vann:
I was just going to say and one one like perfect altruistic example of music is with children and babies. And just to watch how they respond to music and how it just immediately elevates their mood. And it’s just like, pure and simple, right?
Carol Cox:
Well, it does it for us too. As adults, you know, we’re feeling down, like put on a fun, you know, pop song or dance song or something that you really like and start moving around and start singing and you probably will feel better.
Ashley Vann:
100%, yes.
Carol Cox:
Ashley, can you tell listeners where they can learn more about you and more about Victory Cup?
Ashley Vann:
Oh, absolutely. So we have a fantastic website that was built for us by a volunteer, and so please check us out at the Victory Cup initiative. Org you’ll hear all about why storytelling is important, and also you’ll see a list of about 85 nonprofit organizations that have been vetted by thousands of business leaders in our community who help us select our ten finalists each year. And you’ll get to learn about work that’s being done in our community to care for our most vulnerable, and also just to help people who are in need. So that’s one way. We also have a great social media, so check us out on Facebook and Instagram and definitely LinkedIn. And then you can hear about our different events that we have coming up. We do have we’ve like I mentioned, we’ve worked with about 85 nonprofit organizations in Central Florida. So we do have quarterly workshops to help the nonprofit leaders be better leaders and learn more, and just kind of want to always find opportunities to support them and serve them, and so that they’re able to serve more and stay excited and passionate about the different causes that they are working to resolve.
Carol Cox:
Oh, fantastic. Ashley. Well, thank you so much for the incredible work that you do and everyone at Victory Cup Initiative does. Like I said, I was so impressed by the organization and the event. Looking forward to attending next February as well. And for all of you listening, if you obviously live in the Orlando, Central Florida area, definitely check out Victory Cup initiative and come to the breakfast in February. If you’re not local, if you live somewhere else, find a nonprofit or community organization in your area that you’d like to get involved in. Hear their stories. Find out their stories. See if there’s a way that you can get involved with them as well. Because as we know, they’re always looking for donors and volunteers and advocates for their causes. And also, be sure to take our free speaker archetype quiz if you want to discover your natural communication strengths, including storytelling, because that is one of our speaker archetypes, the spellbinding storyteller. So you could be that, or you could be the stellar scholar, or the fabulous facilitator or the provocative performer. They’re all fantastic speaker archetypes, but once you find out which one you are, you’ll get recommendations as far as how to amplify your natural style and add to it, including those important storytelling skills you can take. That quiz just takes a few minutes at speaking your brand.com/quiz. Again, that’s speaking your brand.com/quiz. Until next time, thanks for listening.
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