How Story Helps
Working with narrative is highly effective, sustainable, and readily available.
Here are some ways in which Thaler Pekar & Partners can assist you, your organization, and your grantees in applying the powerful tool of story to program implementation, advocacy, resource development, and communications:
In the planning stages of a project, it is useful to identify:
- Problems that are being addressed and the opportunities that are motivating action; stories can be tremendous sources of inspiration and innovation
- Critical points at which stories may be gathered that will aid in assessing progress and evaluating outcomes and impact
- Questions that will be most useful in eliciting illuminating stories
- Various ways in which to gather and retain these narratives
- Planning for and responding to crises
- Participants who will be accountable for gathering, managing, and ensuring the accessibility of the stories.
In the midst of a project, the collection, analysis, and sharing of stories will be useful in:
- Yielding insight on progress-to-date
- Sharing critical information with stakeholders
- Building trust among key participants
- Making sense of complexities
- Offering solutions to problems that may have arisen
- Providing qualitative results and illustrating quantitative data.
At the close of a project, narrative will:
- Yield insight on what was learned, and how it might have changed the ways in which you work, or will operate in the future
- Clearly articulate lessons learned and the project's outcomes and impact
- Be a useful form for sharing information so as to strengthen understanding among staff, board, volunteers, donors, policymakers, and other stakeholders.
Stories gleaned throughout, or as a result of a project, are useful for advocacy:
- Collected stories will point to actions that need to be taken, or advocacy that others can undertake to rectify problems or increase the provision of services
- Assembled narratives will shed light on who should act, and what activities will be beneficial (or harmful) to advocacy goals.
And stories are a vital tool for being heard and understood:
- Stories should inform the construction of key marketing, advocacy, and fundraising messages.
- Stories are a potent tool for establishing trust with listeners, and helping them to comprehend, remember, and act on your key messages.