Introduction to storytelling strategy guide
If we have a good story to tell, why bother with strategy? Why overthink it?
Telling any story comes with great privilege. For charities facing such a complex web of challenges and pressures, the responsibility to tell the stories that matter weighs more heavily than ever.
The better storytellers we become, the more we can speak truth to power, hold a mirror to the world and an ear to its diverse voices. The more we can learn through shared experience — and find clarity in connection. The more we can shift outdated narratives driving our systems and structures.
If our sector is being compelled to take a far-sighted, more holistic view of society’s needs and how we can address them collectively, then so must our storytelling. True storymaking mastery, after all, is about connecting the pieces — and understanding the relationship between those pieces.
“Real wisdom lies in linking everything together. That’s when the true shape of everything emerges.”
The Books of Jacob, Olga Tokarczuk
When storytelling is layered, how do we make it simple?
All good storytelling can be boiled down to a list of questions and answers. If you peel back the layers, you’ll see who, what, where, when, why and how at the heart of it.
We recognise this checklist as the fundamental principles of news reporting and narrative building. Also known as Kipling’s ‘six honest serving men’, these questions can be a reliable guide for both building the story itself and the plan around it.
But how can we make the most of them to be more purposeful in our strategy?
How do we stave off the temptation of jumping ahead to how our stories look, sound and feel, and where and when they’ll be told? Even the slickest of charity stories can ring hollow if they don’t start with why and build up from there.
Purpose, people, participation and platform
Four useful starting points for telling the stories that matter
To help expand thinking beyond what happens in stories, and more into what they can do, give this simple framework I made a go, starting with purpose and moving through the following sections:
- Purpose (what and why)
- People and Participation (who)
- Platform (how, where and when)
These four Ps aren’t so much a series of steps as a set of lenses to bring more focus to the interconnected questions we need to ask. Whether in strategy workshops or scribbling on the back of a napkin on the train home, let each lens guide your investigation back to the other, in a circular process.
I’ll approach them as broadly as possible, offering various examples, but you may have specific plans in mind. Click on the options below to explore this guide in more detail:
Make your own storytelling strategy
Capture your core strategy for the who, what and why of the story
- Identify objectives
- Identify scope of research, listening and analysis
- Facilitate workshops to unpack, explore and connect
Convert themes into ideas for how, where and when the story will come to life
- Capture strategic elements so far in a creative brief
- Stimulate idea generation
- Assess channels and opportunities
- Evaluate and test ideas before development
Remember to…
- Mine the layers of why (and what) to define the true purpose and possibility of your storytelling. And never stop asking why throughout the process.
- Listen to the people for whom these things matter, and identify who will feature inside and outside of the narrative and its communication.
- Co-create roles for those people fitting the response you seek. Push the boundaries of participation by showing people their power to shape the future.
- Let all points above form the creative building blocks of your story’s platform. Connect the ‘how’, ‘where’ and ‘when’ for maximum impact.
Resources
Here’s a shortcut to some of the simple resources referenced in this storytelling strategy chapter. If you’d like to find out more about storytelling strategy or how Neo, who created these tools to help teams like yours, can help with your storytelling, visit the Neo website.
Images are credited to Neo and Unsplash.
