Effective Interviewing: The Key to Telling Your Nonprofit’s Powerful Stories

(Guest post by Ken Wood)

Good interviews are critical to telling your nonprofit’s powerful stories – and it all starts with asking the right questions.

I was a college freshman when I got the assignment:

Interview the university’s star swimmer for a feature story. I was nervous, even though the guy was my age. Using what little background I had on him, I wrote 20 questions on a yellow legal pad, expecting to knock them off one by one. Within two minutes of starting the interview, my list was about as helpful as the one you use for groceries. The swimmer’s answers didn’t exactly follow what was on that legal pad. Yeah, shocking, I know. My choices were to either continue plowing through the list or to ask follow-up questions when warranted.

I chose the latter. And it made my story better.

If you do not regularly interview people, the task can be daunting. Subjects and interviewers are sometimes nervous. What will they ask? What if they don’t answer the questions?

Here are a few tips to make your interview go more smoothly:

• Do whatever you can to make the subject comfortable. It might be the first time they have ever been interviewed.

• Research the basics – spellings, titles, background – ahead of time so you can make the best use of your time.

• Avoid questions that the person can answer with a “yes” or “no.”

• Ask the “why” question. It tends to draw thoughtful responses.

• When you hear something interesting, follow up. A good line is, “Tell me more about that.”

Interviewing skills improve with practice. And good interviews will enhance your storytelling.