How to turn your programme into a story in ten minutes

"We're making a difference, but no one sees it."

I've heard some version of that from charity leaders and social impact teams again and again over the years, and I've run a charity myself since 2014, so I know where it comes from. Busy people doing good work rarely have time to step back and find the story in it.

When people download my storytelling framework, I ask them what they hope it will help with. The most common answer, by a long way, is funding. In their own words: "Capturing the attention of busy funders." "Bring to life funding bids." "Communicating impact to secure grant funding."

So here's a short exercise, built on the framework I teach. It takes about ten minutes, and it gets you from "we did a lot of good things" to a story someone will remember.

The ten-minute exercise

Pick one programme or project. Set a timer. Answer these five questions, in this order, in a sentence or two each.

1. Where do you want the reader to end up? (2 minutes) Not what you want them to know. What you want them to feel, and then do. Confident enough to renew the grant? Moved enough to give? Write it down first, because it shapes everything else.

2. What does success look like? (2 minutes) Describe one specific person or place after your work has done its job. Not "transformed lives". Something you could photograph.

3. What's the one detail that makes it real? (2 minutes) A phrase someone said. A moment someone remembers. A number that stops people, used sparingly. Specific details are what make a story believable.

4. How does one story connect to the bigger picture? (2 minutes) Start with your one person, then pull back. How many others are in a similar place? What's the pattern your work is changing?

5. What do you want them to do next? (2 minutes) Every story needs a next step. Name it.

Read your five answers back in order. You'll have the bones of a story you can use in a funding bid, an impact report or a social post.

Before you use it

One thing I'd add before you use any of this: check you have permission. If your story is about a real person, they should know how it will be used, where, and by whom, and they should be able to say no. A story that hurts the person it's about isn't worth telling.

Want the full framework?

This exercise is a shortened version of The Social Impact Storytelling Framework, the step-by-step guide I use with charities and social impact teams. It's free.

Download The Social Impact Storytelling Framework

And if you'd like your whole team working this way, have a look at my social impact storytelling workshops.