Creating a Balanced blend- Data and Stories combined

Every aspect of life is more than what we can see at face value. Over the past six weeks, one of the things that has become very apparent about fundraising and grant-writing is the important role personal stories play into everything. That personal connection that is felt universally serves as an extra force in favor of your organization as was explored in a review of direct mailers previously on this blog. But stories can only take an organization so far. Data is needed to help reinforce the value of an organization's goods and services and can help enhance the power storytelling has in the nonprofit sector. In order to get a better understanding of how to weave stories and data into one fluid piece, I looked at a New York Times article by Sheryl Gay Stolberg titled "On the Edge of Poverty, at the Center of a Debate on Food Stamps." Within the article, Stolberg discusses the potential cutbacks the food stamp program (SNAP) may be facing and how it will effect Americans.

Image found on sustainfloyd.org

By focusing in on SNAP recipients in Dyersburg, Tennessee, Stolberg incorporates the recipient's stories and projects the potential implications of the government's actions onto their lives while incorporating statistics and numbers from various sources. One of the things I really liked about this article was how Stolberg book-ended the piece with the human interest factor. She opens with an introduction to two families who are average Americans- the Rigsby and Adams families- who seem to be just like everyone else but in reality, barely scraping by. Over the course of the article, these families go on to expand upon their situation with how much value in stamps they are credited each month and their behaviors in respect to this dollar amount. Both families confess that the parents often limit themselves to one meal a day, if that, in order to make sure their children can eat. Another confesses that she does not purchase milk or cheese-- items the vast majority of us consider to be staple items-- because they are too expensive. Stolberg uses these families and their stories to reinforce her opinion that the proposed budget cuts would be detrimental to families across the nation who are already barely scraping by.

To strengthen the personal stories Stolberg uses to really shape her article, she incorporates numerical statistics and data. This information, while is presented with a personal bias at times, includes general facts about the SNAP program already decreasing in size due to the provision expiration of the 2009 stimulus bill, statistics on the SNAP program itself and other organizations that help families in need, as well as the stances of certain political leaders involved in this decision making process. This data and information is included to provide the reader with a basic understanding of the issue at hand and give them the opportunity to combine these numbers with the family stories to form their own opinion on the outcome of these programs. Focusing in on the number of impacted individuals, Stolberg sites data from the 2012 Department Agriculture survey and an analysis completed by Feeding America to highlight the number of U.S citizens impacted by food insecurity. One of the most effective ways Stolberg incorporated this percentage data was by presenting the statistic for Dyersburg, Tennessee's county against that of the nation in terms of food insecurity, really bringing the local problem onto a big picture scale.

In all, I found Stolberg's article to be an interesting snapshot of the reality of hunger in America that is much closer to home than any of us realize. I think she incorporated the hard facts with her human interest stories in a manner that validated her argument that the diminishing of the SNAP program will only lead to more families suffering.