NEVER ENDING STORIES
-------------------------------Case study and insights about Impact Storytelling
Introductory Word from Brian Palmer – The Power of Stories:
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Impact Storytelling- Bridging Impact Monitoring and External Communication:
5
Stories of Change: Example:
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Case Study:
12
Key insights from the Project:
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Reach for Change’s Mini Guide to Impact Storytelling:
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THE POWER OF STORIES
-------------------------------Introductory Word from Brian Palmer
INTRODUCTORY WORD -FROM BRIAN PALMER
This is a report about telling true stories in hopes of inspiring social engagement. It stands in a long tradition of turning to stories for such a purpose. As Susan Sontag put it: “At the center of our moral life and our moral imagination are the great models of resistance: the great stories of those who have said ‘No.’” I was giving a lecture the other day about Albert Göring, the brother of Hermann Göring who founded the Gestapo and became Adolf Hitler’s chosen successor. Albert went the other way, rescuing Jews. As a chief of Škoda Works in Czechoslovakia, he took trucks to a concentration camp, demanded workers for his factories, and then released them in the forest. He also sheltered anti-Nazi activists at Škoda. At the end of World War II, Albert faced a chaotic Czech “people’s court” because his brother was a war criminal. The court did not believe that Albert was a resistance hero, and it had powers to order immediate execution. Albert’s Jewish and anti-Nazi beneficiaries now returned the favor, rapidly organizing and testifying to save his life.
Another life I often portray is Malala Yousafzai. As an eleven-year-old, she began blogging against the Taliban while living in their shadow in northern Pakistan. At fifteen Malala was shot in the head and neck by a Taliban militant. Around the world, people rallied to save the comatose girl -- prayer vigils, raising money for her care, an airlift to a hospital in England. And it is at that point that some of my listeners are holding back tears. Why there? Albert and Malala both expressed altruistic courage -- stretching beyond their own
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families and friends to try to protect strangers. Few things are so beautiful. And when it becomes reciprocal -- when others act to return the love -- the beauty is almost too much. A vision of the world we want to live in. A foretaste of a humane society. The stories of Malala and Albert remind us
Brian Palmer is a social
of what human beings are capable of. They
anthropologist and scholar of
assure us that amidst the violence, greed
religion at Uppsala University
and indifference, it is still possible for our
in Sweden. Previously he held
species to shine so magnificently.
the Torgny Segerstedt Guest
This report helps us think about how to tell
Professorship at the University
such stories -- stories that touch our hearts, because those are the only ones that can move us to unselfish action.
of Gothenburg. For several years Brian Palmer taught at Harvard University, to 600 students per term in his courses on civic courage and engagement. He
4
At that point in the story, I saw that a few
regularly gives lectures outside
faces in the audience had tears running
the university in both Swedish
down. Why just then?
and English.
THE POWER OF STORIES
REACH FOR CHANGE
IMPACT STORYTELLING
-------------------------------Bridging Impact Monitoring and External Communication
Any organisation claiming, as Reach for Change does, to work for a better world, needs to constantly describe and communicate the problems that it is trying to solve as well as the impact it has. One central function of impact communication, as we call it here, is that IMAPACT STORYTELLING
of “selling” the organisation’s cause, i.e. fundraising or acquiring and retaining support in other ways. Another central function for impact communication is that of analysing and describing the efficiency of the organisation’s programs and engaging in stakeholder dialogue to better understand both the impact and different stakeholder’s perspectives. The former traditionally translates into powerful emotional public campaigns, the latter into more factual and sometimes academic impact
THE IMPACT COMMUNICATION DILEMMA
reporting. In our view, both these forms of impact communication have specific challenges and risks. On the one hand, strong, emotional, public campaigns risk oversimplifying, generalising, or stereotyping, which can undermine the cause or impact group. On the other hand, reporting can be complicated and theoretical, thereby creating barriers for effective and inclusive stakeholder engagement.
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We believe that storytelling, specifically Impact Storytelling, offers a great opportunity to integrate these processes and to avoid the pitfalls of traditional approaches.
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REACH FOR CHANGE
Storytelling is a way of transmitting a message in an engaging and memorable manner. Stories allow us to capture our listener’s attention, and make it more likely that they will remember what we are telling them. Finally, stories move people to take action. Purposeful stories, those created with a specific mission in mind, are absolutely essential in IMAPACT STORYTELLING
persuading others to support a vision, a dream or a cause. All of these functions are useful for cause-driven organisations. By ‘Impact Storytelling’ we mean going beyond using stories to acquire and retain supporters for the cause. We define it as a strategic and methodical process to produce, analyse and communicate true stories about how specific individuals are impacted by an organisation. It
THE DUAL PURPOSES OF IMPACT STORYTELLING
involves engaging various stakeholders throughout the process. We see the opportunity of meeting two objectives with this approach: 01 Qualitatively evaluating the organisation’s impact. This happens both in the process of identifying stories: Are there individual examples of the impact that we aim to achieve? And in the stakeholder dialogues: How do our stakeholders view the impact we are having and what do they see as most significant?
02 Engaging people in the cause. The approach not only lets the organisation continuously gather content for communication, it also creates opportunities to engage stakeholders as co-creators, thereby learning more about which type of stories the target groups
“NOW I CAN FORGET MY DARK PAST.” STORY BY MARTINE UMULISA
find relevant and engaging.
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REACH FOR CHANGE
Quite early in our history we started introducing mechanisms to harvest stories in our reporting process. Our process for this is inspired by the Most Significant Change (MSC) methodology. In practice it means that every quarter each social entrepreneur IMAPACT STORYTELLING
that receives support from Reach for Change must submit the story of a child that they have helped during this period. This means that in 2015, when our portfolio exceeded 100 social entrepreneurs, we collected more than 400 stories, each describing a change in a child’s life. The stories collected were then used as a basis for stakeholder
REACH FOR CHANGE’S JOURNEY IN IMPACT STORYTELLING
dialogues around how they reflect the impact of the individual entrepreneurs and that of Reach for Change. Increasingly, we have also aimed to use this process to identify the stories best suited for external communication and the best ways to use these. In 2015, with the support of Sida, we launched a specific project – The Never Ending Stories Project – to further develop and make use of this approach. The aim was to launch a story-based communication campaign to increase knowledge of African social entrepreneurship among the Swedish youth. In the process we also aimed to further develop our understanding and capabilities and to initiate a wider discussion with our peers on how stories can be used to communicate impact in a responsible, effective and impactful way.
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REACH FOR CHANGE
STORIES OF CHANGE
-------------------------------Example
STORY BY CAROLYNE CAROLYNE EKYARISIIMA
BRIDGING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE BETWEEN BOYS AND GIRLS This story is told in the words of Carolyne Carolyne
THIS STORY IS ABOUT MODESTA.
Ekyarisiima, who shares what happens when a girl is
Modesta is a 15-year-old girl in a public secondary school
empowered with ICT skills:
in Dar es Salaam. The first time I met her was in August 2014 when she came to one of the Apps & Girls coding
ABOUT --------------------
I come from Tanzania, where digital literacy is very low.
clubs that I arrange. Modesta already knew that she
LOCATION: TANZANIA
This is a problem because it inhibits development both
wanted to do something for her community, but she did not
LONGITUDE: 39.2833 E
for the children and for society as a whole. The literacy
know what and how she was going to do so.
LATITUDE: 6.8000 S
is especially low among females - partly because there is a lack of female role models in the field, and partly
Even though Modesta’s father was an auctioneer for
because parents do not realize the value in introducing
secondhand computers, Modesta, like many girls in
their daughters to technology. This creates a digital
Tanzania, had hardly ever used a computer.
divide between girls and boys. 10
STORIES OF CHANGE
REACH FOR CHANGE
BRIDGING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE BETWEEN BOYS AND GIRLS
The first day of the coding club, Modesta was quiet, just sitting behind and watching over her peers’ shoulders as they coded. The second day, she had gained enough courage to grab one of the computers. She managed to turn it on, but she still did not know how to use it. However, Modesta continued coming to the coding clubs and her confidence and interest grew
MODESTA HAS FOUND HER WAY TO CONTRIBUTE TO HER COMMUNITY THROUGH TECHNOLOGY.
day by day. Soon enough, she even started showing up for mentorship programs on weekends and became one of the best coders in the program and started to
Modesta now stands as a role model for many girls. She is
teach her colleagues.
setting up her own organization to become self-employed and has found her way to contribute to her community -
After attending just a few sessions, Modesta created
through technology. She does not want to get employment,
her own website to give a voice to students who
but to create it.
are harassed and abused by bus conductors while
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using public transport in Dar es Salaam. She entered
Modesta is not exceptional or special; there are many girls
Apps&Girls Annual competition 2014, and out of
like her who can do this or even bigger things than what
38 participants, Modesta won the 3rd prize with
modesta has done. I want to continue to empower more
the project. In June 2015 she won the Tanzict and
Modestas who will create employment, solve community
COSTECH Innovation Fund worth about USD 4,500 to
problems and build an innovative generation - making
implement her project which is already available online.
Tanzania a better place for all, despite their gender.
STORIES OF CHANGE
REACH FOR CHANGE
CASE STUDY
--------------------------------
Through the Never Ending Stories Project we sought to use our method for Impact Storytelling to increase the knowledge and understanding of African social entrepreneurship among youth in Sweden. Secondarily, we wanted to take the opportunity to develop as Impact Storytellers, and to help others develop as well. Through our initial research we found that there are countless theoretical models and guidelines for NGOs on how to work with storytelling, but there were not many practical examples. We have therefore taken an experimental and collaborative approach in order to learn and share through open dialogue with other relevant actors.
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CASE STUDY
REACH FOR CHANGE
THE NEVER ENDING STORIES PROJECT
A COMMUNICATION CAMPAIGN POWERED BY DREAMS At the centre of the project was a public campaign aimed at creating buzz and engagement around our impact stories from African social entrepreneurs. The campaign was created in collaboration with the creative agency Deportivo. When creating the campaign we started with a number of initial insights and hypotheses:
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02
03
04
05
Young people in Sweden have a distorted image of African countries based on one-sided media and fundraising campaigns, which convey images of disasters and crises.
By communicating truthful impact stories of African social entrepreneurs creating social change through innovative solutions we can challenge and nuance stereotypes.
If we can impact young adults, we can potentially also reach a wider target audience as young adults are so called “organic ambassadors� sharing feelgood stories and societal issues in social media. They also have an impact on opinion leaders and on society in general.
As young adults in Sweden are increasingly turning away from traditional media, and since the media budget of the project is limited, it makes sense to focus on social media as a main channel.
Young adults receive an overflow of information, and notice and share only issues that have a great personal relevance to them.
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CASE STUDY
REACH FOR CHANGE
http://www.http://theneverendingstories.com//
http://www.http://theneverendingstories.com// http://www.http://theneverendingstories.com//
This presented us with the challenge to connect our stories to a concept that young adults in Sweden could relate to and engage with. Our response to this was to make the campaign about dreams. We believe that all young people have dreams, and every story of change starts with a dream. Without dreams, no change is possible.
SO WE CREATED THE FIRST EVER WEBSITE POWERED BY DREAMS.
We also realised we needed to offer a unique and engaging enough experience for young people to care, and to share.
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THE NEVER ENDING STORIES PROJECT
REACH FOR CHANGE
http://www.http://theneverendingstories.com//
Ur drömmar växer idéer. Vågar vi följa dem kan vi förändra världen.
Se hur f ler drömmar ut vecklas i realtid på theneverendingstories.com THE NEVER ENDING STORIES - POWERED BY DREAMERS
http://www.http://theneverendingstories.com//
Reach for Change är en ideell stif telse grundad av Kinnevik och Sara Damber
We began by connecting five young adults from different time zones – our ‘dream lab’ – to the website through an electronic device that measured their dream activity.
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When the dreamers dreamt, new impact stories appeared on the website (theneverendingstories.com) as stars being lit in a night sky.
16 impact stories from African social entrepreneurs were shared on the website, the majority of them in a straight-forward text format.
THE NEVER ENDING STORIES PROJECT
One of the stories however was presented in the form of a short video. To ignite the online conversation, we contacted a few selected people with influence in the target audience that helped spread the campaign messages online.
We also utilized media space that was provided by our partners to promote the campaign and spread the stories further.
REACH FOR CHANGE
RESULTS
ORGANIC REACH
INTERNATIONAL COVERAGE
STORY VIEWS
------------------------
------------------------
------------------------
The website was launched on
The biggest buzz, however,
The stories presented on
October 1st 2015, and the
was created in international
the website (texts) and on
dream lab was active for one
media. In Sweden, four news
Youtube and Instagram (video)
week. As the campaign spread
articles and one interview
were read or viewed 24,000
organically, more than 600,000
on TV reached 1,5 million
times. To investigate what
people were reached through
people. As the campaign was
impact the campaign had on
social media postings, shares
also picked up by some of
the target audience, we used
and retweets.
the world’s leading online
a test panel of which 87%
youth and innovation media,
showed that their knowledge
the international coverage
of social entrepreneurship
reached more than 55 million
in Africa had increased
people.
after seeing the different
600,000
55 million
24,000
components of the campaign.
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CASE STUDY
REACH FOR CHANGE
STAKEHOLDER DIALOGUE AND METHOD DEVELOPMENT As mentioned, a secondary objective of the project was to learn and develop as Impact Storytellers, and to help others learn and develop. For that reason a lot of focus was given to collaborative work with our Change Leaders and other relevant actors, as well as on developing and conceptualizing our method. The following were central efforts in this work.
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CASE STUDY
REACH FOR CHANGE
01
02
03
AN INTENSIVE STORYTELLING WORKSHOP FOR A SELECTED GROUP OF SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS
A CROSS-SECTOR WORKSHOP ON STORYTELLING
A REVISION AND IMPROVEMENT OF THE REACH FOR CHANGE STORYTELLING GUIDE
These were selected among Reach for Change’s social entrepreneurs, based on the quality of stories they had submitted and on their demonstrated interest in improving their storytelling technique. The training took the form of a three-day workshop in a remote location outside Stockholm, where the entrepreneurs received lectures and individual coaching from the Reach for Change communication team as well as from external experts from the media and communication sectors. These included representatives of the independent media house Fanzingo as well as professional copywriters from the media and advertising sectors. During the workshop each participant produced one to two stories.
On October 20th 2015, Reach for Change organized a workshop focusing on impact storytelling. The objective was to initiate a discussion among those working with communication in NGOs and aid agencies in Sweden, as well as with related stakeholders such as communication agencies and media. With this cross-sector workshop, potentially the first one of a series, Reach for Change wanted to be a catalyst for great ideas and good practices on how to use storytelling for change.
Collaborating with communication and media experts, and sharing with peer organisations in the civil society as part of the storytelling initiative has been a great learning experience for Reach for Change. Based on this learning, we have been able to enrich and revise our storytelling method. Our updated storytelling guide will be used as a resource for all our supported entrepreneurs to further build our organisation’s storytelling capability. An abbreviated version is also shared here.
20 organisations, including representative of the Swedish development agency Sida, the European Commission, Plan International, Friends, the news company Metro, and the PR agency Edelman Deportivo, gathered at the European House in Stockholm for a 2.5-hour seminar to share and learn from each other on how to create and share impactful stories.
“MODESTA NOW STANDS AS A ROLE MODEL FOR MANY GIRLS. SHE DOES NOT WANT TO GET EMPLOYMENT, BUT TO CREATE IT.”
During the first part of the meeting Reach for Change shared their perspective and way of working with storytelling. The second part of the workshop was built around thematic discussions.
STORY BY MARTINE UMULISA 19
CASE STUDY
REACH FOR CHANGE
KEY INSIGHTS
-------------------------------The Never Ending Stories Project
01
02
03
04
05
WITH GREAT STORIES COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY
THE TRUTH IS OUR KEY ASSET BUT IS ALSO RELATIVE
ARISTOTLE HAS SOMETHING TO SAY TO TODAY’S SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS
TESTING, TWEAKING AND COLLABORATING GO A LONG WAY
FACE-TO-FACE IS THE BEST SOCIAL MEDIUM – AND THE MOST POWERFUL
Telling someone else’s story comes with a whole lot of responsibility. Our first responsibility is to respect and protect the integrity of the people we tell the stories about. It is important that individuals are not shown as victims, but as agents of their own life who are facing difficulties and challenges.
A specific responsibility of Impact Storytelling lies in the imperative of truthfulness, which is not the case for all kinds of storytelling. This of course limits the artistic freedom – but it is also a strong point. The fact that a story is true, with its good and bad sides, is a key factor to make it engaging. In addition, a true story will be told and retold with a degree of assertiveness that no fictional story could ever equal.
We have found that a simple narrative model based on the classic dramatic arch works surprisingly well in order to structure and analyse the content of even the most different impact stories. The task of identifying key conflicts, turning points, protagonists and antagonists has been very similar and very useful for all the social entrepreneurs we worked with. Both in order to help them reflect on their own impact and to attract the attention of others.
It has been increasingly obvious to us that Impact Storytelling is a collaborative effort. Getting it right requires the ability to reveal the most relevant impact through interviews with stakeholders (in our case, children), a good understanding of the problem addressed and the impact desired, an understanding of the target audience and the communicative landscape, and a number of other factors. Creating great impact stories is a time-consuming craft. It is a constant process of tweaking, testing and getting feedback. During our storytelling workshop we found great value in collaborative work, honest feedback.
It may come as no surprise, but our experience from the project has clearly shown how powerful real human interaction is in Impact Storytelling. We have experimented with many different formats, channels and techniques, and they have generated different response. Unsurprisingly, the story we shared in the form of a video gained a lot more traction than the ones presented as text. We have found through these experiences that the most engaging medium for storytelling is the social entrepreneurs themselves, telling their stories to a live audience. Even with powerful written narratives and creative use of video and digital media, the best we can hope for is that as little as possible of the power of the personal story is lost in the distribution.
The second responsibility is not to perpetuate or nourish stereotypes, both in the choice of stories we tell, and in the way we tell them. A story illustrates one reality, one specific problematic, which we address in a specific way. Individual stories should be used as an entry point to a broader discussion and to further information. It is important that, in our communication, we make it clear that there is more to understand, more to read, more to take into consideration. Our stories should be nuanced and contain sufficient details for the audience to understand the context in which the story happens. Simple is good, but oversimplification is dangerous. Finally, as a community of storytellers for change, we need to make sure that the sum of all the stories that we share with the public aggregates into a bigger story that reflects the reality, with all the nuances and paradoxes that it implies.
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However, even a story where every detail is factually correct can be misleading. On the other hand, there are manipulations of the truth that would be considered acceptable by most; such as changing the name of a character to protect their integrity, or leaving out irrelevant information to make a course of events more comprehensible. Therefore we believe that, beyond fact-checking details, there needs to be a proper discussion about whether the overall impression of each story is ‘truthful’.
KEY INSIGHTS
REACH FOR CHANGE
06
07
08
09
10
LIFE AND DEATH MAY NOT DO THE TRICK
THE COMMUNICATION CAN GET IN THE WAY OF THE STORY
A SPECIFIC STORY CAN ALSO BE UNIVERSAL
VIRAL SHARING DOESN’T RESPECT NATIONAL BORDERS
SOMEONE NEEDS TO LIGHT THE MATCH TO START THE FIRE
When creating that extra element, there is always the risk of being too creative, or rather being creative at the cost of being relevant. We believe that this was partly the case with our dream lab. Although it seems to have resonated with the target audience and created a lot of attention, it most likely also in some cases got in the way of the actual stories and the message we wanted to get across. A stronger and more easily understood link between the overall campaign concept and the individual stories would most likely have increased the impact of the campaign.
We do believe that good impact stories should focus on one specific individual in a specific context. But in order for the story to make sense and engage, it also needs to evoke universal concepts to which your targeted audience can relate and feel connected.
Our campaign was executed in Sweden primarily targeting a Swedish audience. However, it gained a lot more traction in international media and reached a vastly larger number of people outside of Sweden. This illustrates the fact that on the Internet, specific interests are often a more important common denominator for sharing content than geography.
Most of the organic sharing of our stories in social media can be traced to the influencers that were contacted to help share our messages. Even if a story or a campaign has the qualities to go viral, it needs to start somewhere.
In the campaign we have been working with real stories and life-changing events, sometimes about life and death. One might want to think that would be enough to make the stories go viral when you put them online. The truth is, that has not been the case. There are countless engaging and important stories out there that compete for people’s attention, and in many cases it’s not stories about life and death that create the biggest traction. The further away from faceto-face contact, the more the stories need an extra element to be noticed and shared. It can be something surprising, unique or funny, but it needs to stand out and it needs to be relevant to the target audience.
Essentially it is a lot easier to get noticed when connecting to a theme that your target audience is already thinking and/or talking about than to explain to them why what you want to say is important. It may be a very profound theme – such as a father’s love for his daughter as in the highly viral Dear Dad story from Care Norway (youtu.be/ dP7OXDWof30). But it may also be something a lot more commonplace. Many of the stories shared by Humans of New York (humansofnewyork. com) engaged the audience to a large extent through capturing descriptions of everyday events, feelings and concerns.
“I WAS THE ONLY PERSON WHO SCORED 90% IN THAT TEST. I FELT REALLY PROUD.” STORY BY LILY KUDZRO
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KEY INSIGHTS
REACH FOR CHANGE
MINI-GUIDE
-------------------------------Reach for Change’s Mini-Guide to Impact Storytelling
Based on our experiences we have put together some guidelines and specific advice regarding Impact Storytelling. It should be noted that these are primarily developed for social entrepreneurs working to support children. However, we believe that there are parts that are relevant to any organisation working with Impact Storytelling, and we are happy to share the key points of our approach, while looking forward to continuing to learn from our on-going work and from our peers. For a more comprehensive presentation of how we work with Impact Storytelling, please contact us.
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REACH FOR CHANGE’S MINI GUIDE TO IMPACT STORYTELLING
REACH FOR CHANGE
01
02
03
BUILD A CULTURE OF STORY HARVESTING
CHOOSE THE STORY SHOWING THE MOST SIGNIFICANT CHANGE
DEMONSTRATE IMPACT
To be able to tell stories, you first need to find them and to document them. This is what we mean by harvesting stories. Finding stories are often a journalistic endeavour, it will most likely involve spending time with the beneficiaries of your programme and asking lots of questions.
Starting by looking at your vision and mission, you need to understand what change you want to show. In that way, you will be able to select a story that not only reflects a significant change for the person impacted, but also echoes you and your organisation’s overall story. The main message of your story should be: “this is how we have impacted a person’s life”.
To clearly demonstrate impact, your story must include the right components:
For each story that you use in your communications or reporting, you might need to collect and consider ten or more stories. Thus, it is important that collecting stories from your operations becomes, if not a prioritised activity, one that is fully integrated into your organisational processes. In that way you will ensure a regular and systematic story harvesting and build a large resource of stories that you can choose and work from.
A person whose life has been impacted by your work.
A problem to be addressed, meaning the initial situation the person supported is facing.
-OUR ADVICE Once you have preselected a few stories that you feel reflect your vision and mission share them in draft form with friends and colleagues to see which one(s) represents the Most Significant Change to them. By asking for honest feedback you’ll get help telling great stories, while gaining insights into the impact you are creating.
An impact, meaning a short and medium term outcome representing a change in the person’s life, such as new behaviours or new skills.
-OUR ADVICE Integrate the collection of stories into another process in your organisation. As an example, the collection of stories from social entrepreneurs is part of the quarterly reporting process in place at Reach for Change.
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A solution, meaning the support or programme provided by your organisation to address this specific problem, and which will constitute a turning point towards the resolution of the problem.
-OUR ADVICE An impact, meaning a short and medium term outcome representing a change in the person’s life, such as new behaviours or new skills.
REACH FOR CHANGE’S MINI GUIDE TO IMPACT STORYTELLING
REACH FOR CHANGE
04 USE THE DRAMATIC ARC TO BUILD TENSION AND TRIGGER EMOTION
Well-constructed narratives compel and engage the reader. This feeling of being drawn in is a neurological response in the human brain to certain elements of the story. Thus, constructing the narrative properly can be seen as somewhat of a science. It involves gathering a lot of data, and then strategically selecting elements that effectively and engagingly tell the story. See whether you can find and clearly describe events in the narrative that correspond to these plot points: Raising the Stakes
The Introduction
The Ignighting Incident
Turning Point
After the problem has been
This is where the drama
introduced, normally there
reaches its peak and the
is a series of events where
hero’s fate changes. In
conflict escalates drama.
an impact story this may
In the case of an impact
be where the beneficiary
story this would be adding
comes into contact with
information that increases a
the solution.
feeling of urgency about the problem.
Resolution
This is where you introduce
Any classic story will
the main character and the
revolve around some sort of
The part where the conflict unravels. In an impact story
context of the story.
conflict (typically good vs.
this would be where the
bad). The Igniting Incident
impact is presented.
is the moment in time when this conflict is introduced – the bad guy appears or a
--
problem arises.
OUR ADVICE Integrate the collection of stories into another process in your organisation. As an example, the collection of stories from social entrepreneurs is part of the quarterly reporting process in place at Reach for Change.
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REACH FOR CHANGE’S MINI GUIDE TO IMPACT STORYTELLING
REACH FOR CHANGE
05
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LET THEIR VOICES BE HEARD
INCLUDE THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF DETAIL
ADAPT YOUR STORY TO YOUR AUDIENCE AND TO YOUR OBJECTIVE
MAKE THE STORY SHAREABLE
Needless to say, your story should feature real-life characters and events. Make sure they are in focus and that the story reflects their perspective and in some way is told through their eyes. A very effective way to do this is to quote the person portrayed in the story and let them be heard in the story. When characters speak in a story, it lends immediacy, urgency and authenticity. Let them use their own voice and their own words. People care about people. In the same way, pictures of the main character and of his/her environment can be a valuable addition to a story in order to reinforce a sense of reality.
Keep the amount of technical information to only as much as is needed for your audience to understand what is at stake in the story. Adding too much detail when describing the context of the story or elements of your programme may make it difficult to follow the narrative. On the other hand, in describing for example specific environments, colours, smells, feelings etc, great detail can make the story come to life and help the audience follow the narrative.
When communicating your story you will have a better chance at being heard the more you can adapt it to your target audience. In order to connect with your target audience you should understand them as much as possible. Find out what they’re interested in, how much they know about your topic, and how much time they have for your cause.
In the end, you will most likely only be able to tell your story to a limited number of people. For it to spread widely, it must be shared and retold by the people that hear it. People sharing your story will also most likely recall it better and be more likely to feel responsibility for your cause. To encourage this, and to minimize the risk of it being distorted along the way, make sure that the core message of your story is easy to understand, remember and retell.
--
Connecting to a theme that is relevant to the target audience.
-OUR ADVICE An interview with the main protagonist can be arranged after you have identified and drafted a story in order to capture reflections and quotes. Once the story is finalized, it is important to share the story with the subjects of the story and to get their (and in the case of minors, their parents) signed consent to use their stories and images.
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OUR ADVICE We are aware that a story only shows one reality. To avoid distracting from the story itself, you can refer the audience to another document or webpage for more information about the context of the story.
Some techniques that are used to engage readers include:
Directly addressing the target audience. Help the audience identify with the person in the story by focusing on details that they can easily relate to. -OUR ADVICE
-OUR ADVICE Try to retell your story in three sentences without losing the key message (which will most likely entail your solution and your impact). If it can’t be done, try to see if you can further simplify or clarify your key message. Ask others to retell your story to see if they have understood the core of it. If they haven’t, try to rework it until you have a clear key message.
Create many stories out of one story! It is a good exercise to practice your storytelling skills, and a great way to capitalize on a good story. Work on different target audience, length and communication supports.
REACH FOR CHANGE’S MINI GUIDE TO IMPACT STORYTELLING
REACH FOR CHANGE
JOIN THE COMMUNITY OF STORYTELLERS FOR CHANGE!
We have identified a strong drive amongst NGOs and aid agencies to further work with storytelling as a key component of their communication strategies to create awareness, opinion and engagement, as well as for reporting and transparency purposes. At the same time, this drive comes with a set of challenges both from a communication and from an ethical perspective. We see that there is a clear need for dedicating time and space for organisations to meet and share best practices for Impact Storytelling, thus we have created the We Are Storytellers for Change community on LinkedIn. Please join us in the We Are Storytellers for Change LinkedIn community to continue the discussion about Impact Storytelling.
About Reach for Change Reach for Change is a non-profit organisation founded by the Kinnevik Group and Sara Damber to improve children’s lives. We find and develop Change Leaders – local social entrepreneurs with innovations that solve pressing issues facing children. The entrepreneurs are helped to scale their innovations through seed funding, access to business expertise and networking opportunities. Launched in Sweden in 2010, we are now present in 17 countries across three continents, supporting more than 200 Change Leaders globally. We are steadily moving into more markets and increasing our global impact.