Storytelling and Social Change: A Strategy Guide

The guide below is for organizers, organizations, activists, artists, storytellers, social entrepreneurs, and anyone else who wants to create positive social change.

The guide is bookended by an introduction and an afterword. In between, you’ll find thirty-two short chapters divided into four color-coded sections. The strategy section is about how to use storytelling to best effect in service of your cause. The storytelling section offers ideas on how to tell a good story. The methods section covers some techniques in storytelling. And the structure section looks at practical questions of how to incorporate storytelling into your everyday work. Following these sections is a series of case studies of foundation and nonprofit partners from the first edition of the guide.

To download a PDF of the guide, click here.

Introduction

Are stories any match for tough social problems?

Why Stories?

Why tell stories for social change?

Strategy

How do we develop a storytelling strategy?

Research

How do we do research to support our storytelling?

Audiences

How do we reach new audiences?

Pop Culture

How can we piggyback on pop culture?

Vision

How do we balance short and long-term storytelling?

Location

Where can we tell stories?

Actionable Stories WITNESS

Action

How do we make our stories actionable?

Personal and Political

Personal and Political

How do we combine the personal and the political?

Good Stories

What makes for a good story?

Engagement

How do we keep audiences involved in the story?

Boring Topics

How do we tell compelling stories about boring topics?

Numbers

How do we combine stories and statistics?

Forms

What are some of the forms of storytelling we can use?

Andy Goodman

Story Types

Whose and what kinds of stories can we tell?

Interviews

How can we elicit good stories from an interview?

Paul VanDeCarr

Uses of Story

How is storytelling used for social change?

Will O'Hare for TONYC

Theatre of the Oppressed

What is Theatre of the Oppressed and how can we use it?

Marshall Ganz, leads organizing workshop.

Public Narrative

What is Public Narrative and how can we use it?

Fiction

How can we use fiction in our work?

Humor

How and why can we use humor?

Equal Justice Initiative

History

How can we use history?

Center for Artistic Activism

The Future

How do we tell stories about the future we want to see?

Habits

How do we make storytelling a more regular part of our work?

Constituent Stories

How can we gather stories from constituents?

Story Banks

What is a story-bank and how can we build one?

Ethics

What are the ethics of storytelling?

Professionals

How can nonprofits work with outside storytellers to create change?

Practices

What practices support storytelling on an ongoing basis?

Funders

What can grantmakers do?

Evaluation

How do we evaluate the impact of our stories?

Afterword

By Deepak Bhargava, Executive Director, Center for Community Change Action

Globalgiving/Rockefeller Foundation

Case Study: Globalgiving/Rockefeller Foundation

Heart & Soul / Orton Family Foundation

Case Study: Heart & Soul / Orton Family Foundation

Nation Inside / Media Democracy Fund

Case Study: Nation Inside / Media Democracy Fund

Public Narrative / Rappaport Family Foundation

Case Study: Public Narrative / Rappaport Family Foundation

Cornerstone Theater / Ford Foundation

Case Study: Cornerstone Theater / Ford Foundation

Neighborhood Story Project / Private Funder

Case Study: Neighborhood Story Project / Private Funder

Voice of Witness / Panta Rhea Foundation

Case Study: Voice of Witness / Panta Rhea Foundation

Stories of Change / Skoll Foundation and Sundance Institute

Case Study: Stories of Change / Skoll Foundation and Sundance Institute

Witness / Overbrook Foundation

Case Study: Witness / Overbrook Foundation

Health Media Initiative / Open Society Foundations

Case Study: Health Media Initiative / Open Society Foundations