Organizations want to tell stories about their impact to ensure people understand what they do, why they do it, and why they should continue to be funded to do it. But most organizations do not tell stories with a beginning, middle, and end, with conflict and resolution, or with characters and settings. These are fundamental narrative elements for sharing compelling stories, and yet on their websites or annual reports, organizations tend to share vignettes and profiles, not stories (as scholars from a range of disciplines understand them to be). As a result, they lose the benefits of storytelling, the way people who experience a great story are cognitively transported into the world of the characters, experience the world through the character, and return to their world changed by the story.

Instead, organizations sharing about their impact can feel like social change-y Mad Libs. “We did X so that helpless and deserving group Y can now live the life they want,” they might say, or “X exceptional individual was able to overcome Y challenge with our help.” We see a hero organization helping a homogenous group of helpless people, who we don't get to know beyond their struggle, or we only learn about exceptional deserving individuals that are portrayed solely by their experience with an issue. We don't see organizations working toward change collectively with the people they serve or as critical members of a movement ecosystem working for social change. In research I did with collaborators for the Broke Project, we found that most stories, profiles, and vignettes related to work to end poverty follow this pattern: while an organization is the protagonist, poor people are defined only by their experience with poverty. Similarly, in research with the University of Florida Center for Public Interest Communications, we found that at the time, on the UN Refugees Innovation Service website, the organization shared stories that mostly featured itself as the hero, and few stories featured refugees taking action.

When stories like this are shared over and over again, we come to think about change in limited ways. Such stories do not reflect how change happens, and communities are narrowly defined by their relationship with an issue. Instead, we need to apply insights and best practices from social science and social movements to tell better stories about impact.

Read the full article about telling impactful stories by Annie Neimand at Stanford Social Innovation Review.