A studio for decision tools, storytelling, and leadership systems.
I'm Dave Hail. I build the software, write the stories, and develop the frameworks behind these questions.
How do we think more clearly?
Fundraising intelligence, strategy, and clear systems.
Deployed at Track15 for fundraising strategy and storytelling with nonprofits and institutions.
Why do some stories endure?
Fiction, story development, and creative tools.
Also:
How do we make wiser decisions?
Frameworks for reflection and judgment.
How do we find direction?
Leadership paths, orientation, and smarter travel.
Also:
Part of — Travel intelligence across deals, timing, and planning.
Understand
Story, memory, and meaning
20+ years in advancement, alumni engagement, and fundraising strategy
Built for nonprofit teams managing real donor, campaign, and storytelling work
Creator of Nexus, Inkwell, Margin, DisDave, and the broader Oklahoma Hail studio system
Writing
All essays →- The Story That Built YouMay 2026
Long before you tell stories to anyone else, one story has already been telling you. We rarely notice it. We just call it “who I am.”
- Story vs. MessagingApr 2026
Most of what gets called “brand storytelling” is messaging wearing a story’s clothes. The difference is not stylistic. It’s structural — and it’s why so little of it lands.
- Meaning Before InfluenceApr 2026
The storytelling industry sells influence. But influence is a byproduct, not a purpose. When you optimize for it directly, you usually lose both.
Current Questions
- 01
Can software make fundraising more honest instead of just more efficient?
Most fundraising technology is built to extract. I'm interested in whether it can do the opposite: help people understand why giving matters before we ever ask.
- 02
Why do some stories keep working long after the moment that made them?
It isn't simply that they were written better. Something deeper separates a story that endures from one that was merely told well.
- 03
How do people actually become wiser?
Information compounds on its own. Judgment doesn't. We keep building better ways to collect data and almost no ways to reflect on it.
- 04
How do you keep becoming the leader you hope to be?
Not through a breakthrough. Through thousands of ordinary decisions, made a little more thoughtfully, over years no workshop can teach.