VALUE.md - Fundraising-Event Speech (worked example, anonymized)

This is a complete VALUE.md for a non-software project: a fundraising-event speech given by the founder of a youth-program nonprofit. Anonymized from the field studies. Read in 60 seconds to see the standard's anatomy applied to an audience-in-a-room Q1.

Value Statement

The speech gives the room of likely donors a concrete picture of who their gift reaches and what changes for that person; the room gives back signed pledges and the specific question "how do I do more than tonight?"

Q0: Grounding observation

At the rehearsal on 2026-04-09, I read the speech draft to two prior donors over coffee. Both nodded politely through the abstract framing ("we serve at-risk youth in the X region"). Both asked clarifying questions only when I described one specific graduate - by name, by what they were doing the week before, by what they were doing the week after. Neither asked a question that pulled toward the program's mission statement. Both asked questions that pulled toward the one named person. The grounding moment was watching the engagement switch on, mid-sentence, when I named a person.

Q1: Who it's for?

The donor in the room who has given before and is deciding tonight whether to give again - and at what tier. Not "the audience." Not "potential supporters." The person whose hand will or won't go up when the pledge cards come around.

The audience is also there. The board is also there. The journalists invited for coverage are also there. They each get something from the speech. But the speech is written for one person - the prior-giver deciding tonight - and the others ride along.

Q2: What changes for them?

Before: the prior donor walks in remembering they gave last year, intending to give again at roughly the same level, not yet decided whether to step up. They are open to being moved but expect to hear the same case for support they heard last year.

After: the prior donor walks out with a specific named graduate in their head, a specific moment that named graduate is now in (job interview Tuesday, first paycheck next month), and the question "how do I do more than tonight" - which they ask either to me at the reception, or in the pledge-card notes section.

Q3: How will you know the change happened for them?

Two measurable signals from the same audience over the same event:

The pledge-card "notes" field - count entries that mention a specific graduate by name, a specific moment, or ask "how do I do more?"
The reception conversation - count distinct prior-donors who initiate a conversation about a specific graduate without prompting.

Breaks if: fewer than 30% of prior-donors in the room produce one of those two signals. Or: total pledged dollars from the prior-donor segment do not at least match last year's same-segment total.

Check: Field - pledge-card notes counted that night; reception conversations logged by two trusted observers at the door, debriefed within 48 hours. Lives in audits/q3-acceptance/2026-Q2.md.

Status: Proposed. Will move to Proven if the 30% signal and the prior-year dollar match both clear.

Last verified: not yet · Re-verify by: empty (status is not yet Proven)

Promises

P1 - The room walks out remembering one named person, not a category

Status: Proposed · Recipient: the prior donor deciding tonight.

Last verified: not yet · Re-verify by: empty (status is not yet Proven)

You walk out of this room able to picture one specific graduate by name and to describe what they're doing this week. You won't remember the program's mission statement. You'll remember her.

Breaks if: in post-event interviews with five randomly sampled prior-donor attendees one week later, fewer than three can name the graduate from the speech without prompting.

Check: Field - five-call follow-up, scripted prompt "what do you remember from the speech?" Logged in audits/q3-acceptance/2026-Q2.md.

What we don't promise

We don't promise that the speech moves first-time-giver attendees. The first-time givers in the room get something from it, but they aren't the headline recipient and the success signals above are scoped to the prior-donor segment.
We don't promise the journalists in the room write a story. They might; the speech is not written to be quotable. It is written to be specific.
We don't promise the speech is "memorable" in the generic conference-talk sense. It promises one specific named person, observable behavior, a single ask. Memorability is the byproduct, not the target.

What we don't break

We won't reduce the program's dignity for the named graduate to gain emotional engagement from the room. If the named graduate would not want a sentence said about her in this room, the sentence comes out - even if removing it weakens the speech's pull. Explicit consent for every named-graduate detail is the floor; pre-event walk-through with that graduate is the standard practice.
We won't optimize for tonight's pledged dollars at the cost of next-year retention. If the speech wins tonight by promises the program can't keep (named-graduate outcomes the program does not actually predict), prior-donor retention next cycle is the loss line. Re-evaluate the named-graduate selection if next-cycle prior-donor retention drops more than 10 points after a same-segment speech.