When naming them would cause them harm, do this instead

I’ve been speaking with a lot of UK charity leaders recently, and the same problem keeps coming up, especially among those working with vulnerable adults and young people.

They have a story that could change policy, unlock funding or shift public opinion. They have a person willing to tell it. But naming that person, showing their face or saying where they live could cause real harm. Sometimes the harm is physical. Sometimes it’s being retraumatised. Sometimes it’s a family member finding them, or a young person being outed before they’re ready.

So the story sits untold. The impact goes unproven. The pattern continues.

Your most powerful stories often belong to people you can’t name, and that’s exactly why they matter. Safety is a reason to tell the story differently, not a reason to stay silent.

What shape-telling looks like

Let me tell you about someone my charity, the Naz and Matt Foundation, supported. I’ll call him Ali. That isn’t his name.

Ali grew up in a country where being gay was illegal, and where community trials for homosexuality too often ended in death. He had a happy childhood and a good life. He worked as a waiter in a small café that served tourists. The price was keeping who he really was a secret, and he paid it for years.

Then he met another man, and they fell in love. They were careful, because the stakes were lethal. But one day they were seen kissing on the cheek in what they thought was a private moment.

As Ali approached his family home later that day, he could hear his father shouting inside, things breaking, his mother crying. He didn’t go to the door. He called the house instead. His mother answered and said only this:

Then his father came out of the house with a gun. Ali ran until he reached a brick wall at the end of an alley. He heard the bullet before he saw where it landed, in the wall beside his head.

He lived. He hid. His brother, who worked in law enforcement, hunted him for months. A family friend eventually helped him escape. He’s alive today because of that.

I haven’t told you which country Ali is from. I haven’t told you his partner’s name, the city he lived in, his family name or the year this happened. Those are the details that could still put him at risk. And yet you understand the story. You know what’s at stake when a charity supports someone like him.

That’s shape-telling: keeping the shape of what happened and removing everything that could identify the person.

Ask for: a list of every identifying detail in a protected story, and a decision on each one, before it’s drafted.

Three things every leader needs to hold about protected stories

The heaviest cost is on them

When someone agrees to share a protected story, they’re almost always doing it for one reason. They want to stop someone else going through what they went through.

If you then publish it and nobody sees it, you’ve let them down. Protecting them in the telling is only half the job. You also owe them the work of making the telling count.

Patterns are safer than persons

One of the most underused techniques in ethical charity storytelling is the composite story: a narrative built truthfully from the shared experiences of several people, and openly described as a composite.

Composites protect identity without sacrificing truth. They often carry more weight than a single case, because they show a pattern. And trust grows when you say “this is a composite”, because you’re being honest about how the story was made.

Ask for: composites to be labelled clearly as composites, every time they’re used.

Consent has to keep up with the story

What happens if someone wants to withdraw consent after publication?

If the story went out as a radio interview, a television broadcast or a documentary that has already aired, it can’t really be withdrawn. If it’s on your website, your social media or in your impact report, it can and should be.

Most charities haven’t decided in advance how they’ll handle that call. Who speaks to the person? Do you take the report down, or republish it without the story? How fast do you move?

And the person must know all of this before they agree, in plain language. Informed consent has to include knowing what can’t be taken back.

Ask for: a written withdrawal process that says who acts, what comes down and how quickly, agreed before anything protected is published.

A decision we’ve had to make

Since we launched Out and Proud Parents Day in 2019, it has celebrated religious parents who chose to love and accept their LGBTQ+ children. In 2026, for the first time, we’ve been asking even those parents not to reveal their identity publicly unless it’s completely safe for them to do so.

The climate is more hostile than it has been in years, and a parent being identified can lead straight to their child. So we’ve had to decide, story by story, what we will and won’t publish. I share this because it’s real, current and hard, and because other organisations working with marginalised communities may face the same kind of decision.

Six questions to ask before a protected story goes public

1. Which details could identify this person, directly or in combination?

2. Would a composite tell this story more safely?

3. Has the person seen the final version, in the format it will appear?

4. Do they know which formats can’t be withdrawn?

5. Who acts if they change their mind, and how quickly?

6. Is there a plan to make sure the story is actually seen and used?

Where to start this week

Find one story your organisation has never told because the person can’t be named. Write down the details that would identify them. Then ask whether the story still works without them. Most of the time, it does.

If you’d like help shaping protected stories for a report, a bid or a campaign, that’s part of my storytelling consultancy. My newsletter, The Social Impact Storyteller, also has a free protocol and checklist for protected stories.

Questions people ask

How do you tell a story when the person can’t be identified?

Keep what happened and remove what identifies them: name, place, dates, relationships and any combination of details someone could recognise. Composites, careful photography of hands, objects and spaces, and the person’s own words without their name all help.

Is a composite story honest?

Yes, if you say it’s a composite. Built truthfully from real experiences and clearly labelled, it can carry more weight than a single case.

Can someone withdraw consent after their story is published?

From your website, social media and reports, yes, and you should have a process ready. From broadcasts and printed materials, often not, so they need to know that before they agree.