Cultivating a Storytelling Culture in Your Organization
By Keagan Perlette
Storytelling for non-profits is a powerful tool for raising awareness, engaging communities, inspiring action, and driving change. Whether it’s sharing the founder’s journey as part of your non-profit branding or telling a single fundraising story in a case for support, stories can shape your organization’s identity and attract like-minded supporters who are excited about what you’re doing.
Telling effective stories starts with establishing a storytelling culture. In this article, we’ll share the three elements you need to have in place to develop a storytelling culture in your organization. |
Three elements of a storytelling culture
1. Storytelling Mindset
In storytelling cultures, everyone thinks and communicates in the language of stories: sharing lived experiences and organizing events into a narrative structure when they speak and write. Stories emerge organically out of a community that values telling them. It’s essential to get everyone in your organization involved in storytelling.
Here's how: Start by communicating why a storytelling approach is important and how it adds value to the work you’re doing. Get teams on the same page by educating them about effective storytelling frameworks and encouraging them to share their experiences and observations in a story format. Develop a storytelling culture that’s in line with your organization’s values.
2. Storytelling Strategy
Successful non-profit storytelling teams have structures in place to gather stories so there’s a constant inflow of inspiration. Effective storytellers also have clearly defined processes for tracking and measuring how well their stories are performing.
Here’s how: To tap into the stories that are already in your organization, set up regular meetings to hear from your staff and volunteers who have boots on the ground. A powerful source of stories is the community of individuals who benefit from the work you do. Telling your community’s stories ethically increases trust in your organization and clearly communicates your impact.
Establish systems for capturing data about the stories you tell and determine key performance indicators (KPIs). This could include tracking quantitative metrics like reach, click-throughs, and conversions as well as qualitative metrics like public sentiment.
3. Storytelling Capacity
You need to dedicate resources and talent to produce stories for your non-profit branding initiatives, fundraisers, and awareness campaigns. Your team needs the skills and bandwidth to create stories using a variety of mediums and distribute those stories effectively—whether that’s through your own channels or via media coverage.
Here’s how: You can build an internal team of storytellers with diverse skill sets or rely on one individual to lead storytelling with a narrow focus. Another option is to bring in external support from communications specialists or content agencies. Doing so gives you the chance to expand your storytelling capabilities, experiment with different mediums, and get support measuring success without over-extending your internal team.
In storytelling cultures, everyone thinks and communicates in the language of stories: sharing lived experiences and organizing events into a narrative structure when they speak and write. Stories emerge organically out of a community that values telling them. It’s essential to get everyone in your organization involved in storytelling.
Here's how: Start by communicating why a storytelling approach is important and how it adds value to the work you’re doing. Get teams on the same page by educating them about effective storytelling frameworks and encouraging them to share their experiences and observations in a story format. Develop a storytelling culture that’s in line with your organization’s values.
2. Storytelling Strategy
Successful non-profit storytelling teams have structures in place to gather stories so there’s a constant inflow of inspiration. Effective storytellers also have clearly defined processes for tracking and measuring how well their stories are performing.
Here’s how: To tap into the stories that are already in your organization, set up regular meetings to hear from your staff and volunteers who have boots on the ground. A powerful source of stories is the community of individuals who benefit from the work you do. Telling your community’s stories ethically increases trust in your organization and clearly communicates your impact.
Establish systems for capturing data about the stories you tell and determine key performance indicators (KPIs). This could include tracking quantitative metrics like reach, click-throughs, and conversions as well as qualitative metrics like public sentiment.
3. Storytelling Capacity
You need to dedicate resources and talent to produce stories for your non-profit branding initiatives, fundraisers, and awareness campaigns. Your team needs the skills and bandwidth to create stories using a variety of mediums and distribute those stories effectively—whether that’s through your own channels or via media coverage.
Here’s how: You can build an internal team of storytellers with diverse skill sets or rely on one individual to lead storytelling with a narrow focus. Another option is to bring in external support from communications specialists or content agencies. Doing so gives you the chance to expand your storytelling capabilities, experiment with different mediums, and get support measuring success without over-extending your internal team.
Start cultivating a storytelling culture
Everyone should understand your non-profit narrative and be able to identify stories that fit into the bigger picture. Create frameworks to help establish alignment within your organization about what storytelling looks like, which stories you want to tell, and how those stories should be presented in support of this overarching narrative. This includes creating nuts-and-bolts documents like brand tone and style guides as well as communications materials that showcase your organization’s mission, vision, and values.
Storytelling for non-profits is a skill that you and your team can strengthen over time. Organizations that consistently tell impactful stories take a growth mindset approach. They know that experimenting with new formats and inviting diverse perspectives enrich their brand and help them reach new audiences. With a strong storytelling culture, your team will be better equipped to tell stories that matter even as society evolves and attention shifts from one hot topic to the next.
Storytelling for non-profits is a skill that you and your team can strengthen over time. Organizations that consistently tell impactful stories take a growth mindset approach. They know that experimenting with new formats and inviting diverse perspectives enrich their brand and help them reach new audiences. With a strong storytelling culture, your team will be better equipped to tell stories that matter even as society evolves and attention shifts from one hot topic to the next.
Get expertly-crafted frameworks that power storytelling for non-profits
Perch Communications helps community-driven organizations craft messaging that makes an impact with our proven storytelling framework. The Perch approach can help you establish a foundation for storytelling in your organization. We can provide done-for-you messaging development and story-centric media campaigns that highlight your non-profit narrative and amplify your cause.
Start your storytelling journey today. Book a free consultation.
Start your storytelling journey today. Book a free consultation.