GWRITES

Storytelling. Strategy. Social Change.

Your Organization Has a Narrative Problem, Not a Storytelling Problem

A pair of burgundy leather dress shoes worn with two completely different socks — one solid mauve ribbed sock and one bold blue-and-orange striped sock — below light grey pinstriped trousers, photographed on a concrete sidewalk.

Every morning, I choose an outfit to support the arc of my day. If I don’t think about what I’m trying to wear in context of what’s happening that day, I could end up with a completely random, unmatching outfit — a puffy white pirate shirt paired with pinstriped grey suitpants, for example, and a pair of yellow Crocs, a hot pink puffy ski jacket, and a baseball cap with a military unit patch on the front. That outfit does nothing but sow confusion (and probably attract some weird looks).

Organizations that only prioritize storytelling without that overarching narrative are choosing to don a mismatched outfit. The result? They struggle to connect with their audiences in meaningful ways. A nonprofit or a company might have great stories to tell, but if they aren’t curated effectively to support a narrative, the audience is going to have no idea what to think about them.

Why to prioritize narrative

Narrative is the overall arc of what you’re trying to say — it can be about the full scope of your work, or even a subset like an event or campaign. Story just illustrates an aspect of that arc.

Storytelling is a really important part of narrative work, just like socks — one of the stories your outfit tells — are pretty critical to keeping your feet from developing blisters inside your shoes. But without narrative, it’s really hard to know which story to select. 

How narrative helps curate stories

When AI4ALL asked me to write the annual report for their 2023-2024 academic year, we discussed what foundational narrative explained the impact they’d had. We settled on this: The organization bridged “the gap between education and industry, ensuring AI4ALL students are positioned for long-term success in the field.” 

We can extrapolate some clear elements from that narrative: 

Who We Are: The organization cares about creating a diverse and responsible AI workforce. (Note: This element comes from the organization’s broader mission rather than this specific narrative.) 

Why We Matter: Without AI4ALL, a gap will persist in the continuum of AI education through to the workforce, and students will fall through that gap. 

The Problem: Students want to study AI and be well-positioned for internships and careers in tech and other industries that leverage AI. There’s not enough education opportunities for that yet, and some students need extra support to find and leverage those opportunities. 

The Solution: Providing more fundamental education while creating pathways for the students to get mentorship, sponsorship, and connections within the industry. 

What’s Possible: Long-term success for these students, and stronger companies that make better products and decisions. 

The stories I selected for the report brought that narrative to life:

  • A student who worked with a team to apply AI concepts to building a breast cancer identification model; 
  • An intern at Cisco who credits the organization’s support with helping her structure her resume and build the interview skills that landed her that role; and
  • A systems engineer at the U.S. Naval Surface Warfare Center whose work building Python and machine learning proficiency through AI4ALL set him on a path to his current career in cybersecurity. 

Each story took a different angle on illustrating the narrative, and we selected those student stories based on the various ways we wanted to show the truth of the narrative and the impact of the work. 

Narrative-driven choice, AKA editorial judgement

In 2024, I helped LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired in San Francisco explain to drivers why it’s so important to be aware of blind and low vision pedestrians at intersections and driveway openings. 

We selected a series of staff member stories to tell – every one of them compelling, every one of them illustrating a close call with traffic. 

To create an effective script out of the interviews we collected, I had to create a compelling chain of stories that really illustrated the real danger to blind and low vision pedestrians that exists, and then use those stories to help remind sighted drivers how to move through traffic with heightened awareness.

I chose to open the script with the most traumatic story, which was a challenging choice — it required that I not only create an environment in which the staff member was willing to tell the story, but also had to create enough trust between us quickly that he would understand that I wanted to leverage the story not just because it was so dramatic, but because it did the best job of illustrating the real risk to people simply trying to navigate from point A to point B. He was gracious enough to share the story and to allow us to use it in the way it had the most narrative impact, and the project was stronger for it.

Who owns the narrative?

I firmly believe the right home for the narrative within an organization is with the communications — and sometimes development — teams. They are the ones tasked with speaking to the organization’s key audiences, and they can hold that narrative with care and professionalism while collecting stories from program, product, and other teams.

These are the folks with the 30,000-foot view of how the stories are best told, and how they best contribute to the work of reaching audiences and showing the impact of the mission-oriented work. If you’re being handed stories that you’re expected to make work without having been part of defining the narrative, that’s a big gap. Those stories have to fit the narrative, and organizations need to bake the wisdom to do that into communications and development processes. 

If you want to hear more about how to define the elements of a strong organizational narrative, I’m giving a workshop at the Nonprofit Technology Conference in Detroit on March 12. (As of this writing, it’s not too late to register!) During the hour-long session, you’ll learn how to define a narrative for your specific mission and practice applying that narrative to help select the right stories for powerful fundraising appeals, advocacy campaigns, and event invitations. 

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