What are blocks and how do they work?
Blocks are the foundational sections of a story.
Blocks within a story can be moved into any order by dragging and dropping them. You can change the background color of any block by clicking on the fill icon. Blocks can be added by clicking the plus button and deleted by clicking the trash icon. Note, blocks that are deleted cannot be recovered.
What type of blocks does Stories offer?
Text
Tell your nonprofit’s story! The text block allows you to write and style text. Customization options include text style (H1, H2, H3, H4, or Normal), bold, italic, underline, link, lists (bulleted or numbered), emojis, and text-align (left, center, or right).
Quote
Quickly format your quotes! After adding the block, click the “Add Quote” button. The quote block allows you to enter a quote, author, and role. Once you’ve entered this information, click outside of the fields to preview the block.
Summary Metric
Visually present your data! After adding the block, you can type in high-level metrics from your nonprofit. By default, this block has three metric cards. To remove a metric card, click the “X” in the top right corner of the metric card. To add a metric card, use the plus button in the top right corner of the block. This block can have between one and three metric cards.
Tip: If you enter a number (i.e., 100), dollar amount (i.e., $100), or percent amount (i.e., 85%), a count-up animation will automatically be applied when a reader scrolls to the page.
Text & Image
Create two-column layouts! After adding the block, you can add text and an image. The text editor behaves the same as the Text block, while the image selector works like the image block. What’s unique about the block is the ability to select from three layouts: left, right, and text top. You can switch between these layouts using the layout icon in the top right corner of the block.
Image
A picture’s worth a thousand words! After adding the block, click on “Add an image” to bring up the image selector drawer. To add a photo from your computer, click “Upload Photo”. Uploaded images will appear in the image selector drawer. To add an image to your story, click on the image you want in the drawer. Once clicked, the image will appear in the selected block.
You can click on the image at any point while in edit mode to swap the image that will appear there.
Video
A video’s worth a thousand pictures? Stories supports video embeds from YouTube and Vimeo. To learn how to embed a video, view the YouTube Help (https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/171780?sjid=8261533382002206574-NA) or Vimeo Help (https://help.vimeo.com/hc/en-us/articles/12426259908881-How-do-I-embed-my-video-) articles on the topic. Once you paste the embed code, click outside of the text box to render the code. To change the video, hover over the top right corner of the video and click “Edit”.
Call to Action
Ask your readers to take action! After adding the block, click “Write a call to action…”. Using the form fields, enter text that tells your audience to take action, text for the button, and a link to which the button should go. Click outside of the form to preview the block.
Donations
Convert your readers into donors by leveraging this integration with Resilia Donations. Set up donations with Resilia to leverage this block and create your first campaign (https://help.resilia.com/knowledge/how-do-i-set-up-donations). Once you’ve completed these steps, click “Ask your audience for donations from this story…”. Using the form fields, enter text that tells your audience to donate and text for the button. Finally, select the campaign to which you want your button to link. Click outside of the form to preview the block.
Try different elements in one story to make it compelling and easy to read! We encourage you to use background colors, too, to define different sections in your draft.