Naba Ahmed
July 19, 2023
Storytelling is the key to keeping your audience interested and excited by your presentation. The problem is that weaving a story into every presentation can seem like an arduous task.
By using Prezi, our topic structure and story blocks enable you to easily craft a narrative. You even have the ability to adapt your presentation based on your conversation or your audience, allowing you to use the same presentation to tell multiple stories.
To learn how to effectively bring storytelling into all of your presentations, get inspired by a few of our users who used Prezi for everything from board presentations to classroom lessons.
How to raise funds using Prezi
Javier Schwersensky, President and CEO of the University of Winnipeg Foundation, works to raise funds for students in financial need, support research projects, and fund critical infrastructure needs.
Javier uses Prezi Present with all key stakeholders: Foundation board and staff, political leaders, and donors. Given the critical importance of the work, Javier needs to use a tool that will captivate them and convince everyone to support deserving students, help fund critical research projects and enhance campus life. He likes that he can zoom in on topics to unpack each of the components because he can show “how everything ties in together.”
“This is a tool that is going to put you ahead of other people and make you look professional and make your ideas stand out,” Javier said. “Prezi is not just about window dressing. It offers you a better way of presenting information. It’s a human way of presenting.”
Javier likes to use Prezi’s templates as a jumping-off point from which he can customize his presentations and showcase his creativity.
“I still haven’t found anything else that will allow me to dump my ideas, and then organize them in a manner that reflects the way that I want to present and add my own personality. That’s what has kept me with Prezi.”
In addition to making stakeholder presentations, he has used Prezi Present to teach online courses for a local academy. He also appreciates that Prezi allows him to collaborate with his team by sharing his presentation or to send the link out for others to review after the meeting.
“I use Prezi because number one, I want to give them something to remember,” Javier added. “And number two, my brain works in a nonlinear fashion, and Prezi helps me nurture my ideas. I can put my thoughts in a format that actually makes a lot more sense than anything else that I’ve ever used.”
Javier’s presentation for a fundraising event
Prezi supports an interactive teaching style
As an Assistant Professor of Management, Tamara Montag-Smit was in search of a product that supports her teaching style, which focuses on audience engagement.
“The main thing that caught my eye with Prezi is the functionality of the presentation that allows you to present in a nonlinear manner, and that’s how I prefer to present,” Tamara said. “Prezi works with my style of presenting.”
In addition to Tamara using Prezi Present to lecture in her University of Massachusetts Lowell classroom, she also has found that sharing her presentations over Zoom is just as effective for capturing student interest and attention.
Tamara also records asynchronous videos by adding narration to her Prezi presentations for students to review on their own time.
Before Tamara begins creating her presentation, she explores our selection of templates. Once she finds one she’s satisfied with, it’s easy for her to reuse and update as needed.
Prezi’s open canvas enables you to jump around in the presentation
As an educator, Vitek Dočekal appreciates the open canvas style that Prezi offers because it provides him with creative freedom. He typically starts with a completely blank canvas or a whiteboard.
“It allows me to create a mind map and determine how to best present my ideas and outline my topics. I can easily add information in and out of topics as needed,” Vitek said.
Since Vitek began using Prezi in 2011, it’s been the only presentation software he’s used.
“Nobody has inspired me with a better solution for my presentation,” Vitek stated. “Prezi’s topics give me the inspiration to create my presentation structure and really connect with it.”
He uses Prezi to teach his in-person human resources management classes and create video lectures for asynchronous teaching.
“It’s the nonlinear way of presenting that I appreciate,” Vitek said. “I’m not stuck in the sequential list of slides.”
Prezi’s nonlinear nature makes your presentations malleable
Adam Rose is the Director of Partnerships and Growth at Travois, a Certified-B Corporation focused exclusively on promoting housing and economic development for American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian communities. Because of Prezi’s flexible structure, he’s able to communicate with different types of clients using the same presentation.
Initially, his team started using Prezi internally to lead conversations and then incorporated it into conferences they hosted.
“It’s very helpful to use it as an internal tool to brainstorm and communicate ideas,” Adam said. “I can sit down with a coworker and maybe spend an hour coming up with ideas using Prezi to facilitate where a conversation can go. It’s the key part of driving this discussion.”
Since then, Travois’ usage of Prezi has grown significantly both internally and externally. When he speaks to prospects about expanding affordable housing opportunities, he communicates with images and stories — “and Prezi is crucial in that.” Prezi allows him to organize his thoughts, unlike a “Word document with a list of bulleted ideas.”
Especially when it comes to client meetings, presenting with Prezi enables him to talk to clients in different ways and “be able to communicate without necessarily having a preset determination of how the conversation is going to go, rather than click through a whole bunch of slides.”
“If they’re not sticking around and I’m losing them, I can redirect the conversation easily in Prezi to what our clients want to learn more about, which is very valuable,” Adam said.
What he really loves is how you can add videos to Prezi Present.
“Being able to integrate videos is extremely effective in capturing their attention,” Adam added. “I can narrate over the top of it and it gives a professional sense of what we’re doing.”
Additionally, he hosts webinars that are 50-60 minutes long and Prezi contributed to high retention.
“I see very little drop-off and if a participant joins, they will stay for the full duration,” Adam said. “And I think that’s because, with Prezi, we’re able to integrate things that are important, easy to understand, but also pretty visually appealing as well.”
Unleash your presentation potential with Prezi
You don’t need to be a masterful storyteller in order to create a captivating presentation. Whether you’re presenting for a nonprofit, in a classroom, or at a conference, you can easily tailor the presentation to your audience’s needs. Choose one of Prezi’s templates or create a copy of another user’s presentation. For more presentation examples, check out our other user stories.
