Expressing impact through storytelling (P3)
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Presented by Craig Tomlinson, Learning and Evaluation Manger, BBC Children in Need at NCVO's 2015 Evolve conference. How to engage and inspire your audience, and describe the difference your organisation makes using statistics and a strong narrative. https://www.ncvo.org.uk/training-and-events/evolve-conference
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Expressing impact through storytelling (P3)
- 1. P3: EXPRESSING YOUR IMPACT THROUGH STORYTELLING: HOW TO WRITE AN ENGAGING TALE FACILITATOR: SARAH MCCOY SPEAKER: CRAIG TOMLINSON, BBC CHILDREN IN NEED
- 2. Participants have a better understanding of what an impact story is and the benefits of telling a good one Participants can describe the elements of a good impact story Participants feel more confident to use both qualitative and quantitative information to tell their own story Participants have new ideas for how to communicate their impact 2 SESSION OBJECTIVES
- 3. 3 WHAT IS AN IMPACT STORY?
- 5. IN THE UK TODAY… • 3.7 million children are living in relative poverty • 950,000 disabled children and young people aged 18 years and under • Nearly one in five young people aged 11 to 17 have experienced high levels of abuse or neglect • Every 22 minutes, the mother or father of someone under 16 dies • There are at least 49,000 children and young people living with a life limiting or threatening condition • There are approximately 244,000 children or young people caring for a loved one
- 6. 6 OUR WORK Every child in the UK has a safe, happy and secure childhood and the chance to reach their potential We will achieve this by supporting, promoting and publicising work that addresses the challenges that children and young people face and work that builds their skills and resilience THE VISION
- 7. 7 OUR ACHIEVEMENTS • So far the British public and Children in Need partners have helped to raise over £740 million • We currently support 2,657 active projects to the value of £122,320,387 • In 2014 our grants helped to change the lives of 480,000 children and young people in the UK
- 8. 8 OF THIS 480,000… • 38% raised their self esteem and became more confident • 21% enhanced existing or gained new skills • 20% experienced positive changes in their emotional wellbeing • 14% improved their relationships with their families or carers • 12% improved their engagement with education or employment
- 9. WHEELS TO WORK LAUREN’S STORY “It’s given me a sense of independence and it’s great not to have to rely on someone else to get places. I hope to study paramedic science at university.”
- 10. 10 STICK N STEP REUBAN’S STORY “Everyone was so supportive and positive – it was all about what Reuben could do, not what he couldn’t do.”
- 11. 11 WHAT MAKES A GOOD IMPACT STORY?
- 12. • CONTEXT: Set the scene for your audience; help them understand your characters’ history and experience. • NARRATIVE: A story has a beginning (engagement), a middle (your work), an end (the difference you make). • CHARACTERS: Introduce and develop the people who are involved in and affected by your work • ENGAGE AND INSPIRE: Help your audience relate to your characters and cause with emotive language and detail of individual cases. • SCALE: Demonstrate the magnitude of your work with numbers and statistics. • APPROPRIATE LENGTH: Be concise and to the point so your ‘readers’ make it to the final page. • ACCESSIBLE: A story should be a pleasure to read, not a chore. Don’t make your audience work too hard. 12 WHAT MAKES A GOOD IMPACT STORY
- 14. 14 IMPACT MEASUREMENT AND REFLECTION IS IMPORTANT • Need proportional expectations • Be realistic in what you achieve • Be honest in what you report • Stories of impact include narrative and numbers
- 15. 1515 WHY ARE STORIES IMPORTANT TO US? • Children in Need tell stories to show our funding is worthwhile – “Humans are wired to respond to stories.” • We actively collect stories from: applications, reports and visits (also like unsolicited stories) • Grantees are getting better at telling stories (as are we) • A grantee’s impact story shows understanding
- 16. 16 IN SUMMARY.. A good impact story is like an extended elevator pitch The debate about numbers or narrative is can be seen as largely redundant It doesn’t have to be an academic paper to be credible and engaging Don’t make your audience try too hard
- 17. 17 QUESTIONS?
- 18. www.ces-vol.org.uk Tel: 020 7520 3150 Email: ces@ncvo.org.uk BBC Children in Need www.bbc.co.uk/pudsey Email: craig.tomlinson@bbc.co.uk 18 KEEP IN TOUCH
- 19. THANK YOU Please remember to complete and hand in your evaluation forms 19
Editor's Notes
- Notes for session: Welcome to this session on expressing your impact through story-telling. We’re lucky enough to be joined by Craig Tomlinson from Children in Need today who is going to co-deliver the session with me. As you know, we’ve only got an hour today, so this is very much an introductory session. However, we’re hoping that it’ll give you food for thought and that you’ll be inspired to become better storytellers as a result!
- Notes for session: So, to set the scene a little… If you’ve been to one of our training sessions, you’ll know that we say the benefits of monitoring and evaluation fall into two main categories; we evaluate to learn from our work and make things better, but also so that we can tell people about all the wonderful things we’re doing. At CES (or NCVO) we think that the priority for organisations should be evaluation for learning, but in this session we’re going to focus on the idea of communicating impact and how we can do so more effectively. After all, while evaluation for learning is important, we often wouldn’t be able to make the changes our findings point to without external support, and gaining that support requires us to be able to describe the impact of our work well. We tell people about the difference our work makes so that they’ll engage with our cause and support us in whatever way they can (e.g. by awarding us with a grant, or by giving an afternoon of their time to volunteer). To truly engage they need to understand and be inspired by our work, and we believe that the best way to achieve that is by telling a good story. With the recent emphasis on ‘standards of evidence’ and a requirement for statistics, I think we’re in danger of forgetting that what engages people are stories. People like stories – they like drama, suspense, something they can relate to – which is why novels fly off the shelves, but peer reviewed academic journals rarely do! So in this session we’ll be helping you to think about how can you tell a good impact story at your organisations. We think there are a number of factors that need to be considered when you’re describing your work, so that you can create the kind of story that ‘flies off the shelves’ and doesn’t hang around collecting dust. But before I tell you what those elements are, I’m going to ask Craig to illustrate them by telling you the story of CiN’s impact.
- Notes for session: Having heard Craig tell CiN’s story, and using the handout we’ve given you, take five minutes to discuss on your tables ‘What makes a good impact story?’ What would you need to include or think about when you’re telling yours? 5 minutes to brainstorm, 5 minutes to feed back.
- Notes for session: We’ve covered most of these in our discussion, but here are the things we think make a good impact story. On your handout you’ll see a summary of these points and some questions that you might want to ask yourself when you’re covering each point in your own impact story. CONTEXT – Set the scene for your audience. What are the issues you’re responding to? What’s the scale of these issues? If your audience doesn’t understand where you’re coming from, it won’t ‘get’ what you’re trying to achieve. NARRATIVE – A good story will describe the journey your service users (or characters) make when they engage with your services. How do they get involved? What activities are they involved in? And what difference do those activities make? What goes into the pot, what happens once they’re in there, and what are they like when they come out the other side! (Think about the elements of the logic model to guide this if it’s something you’ve used before.) CHARACTERS: Events in a story involve an animate creature (the people or animals who are your beneficiaries or your staff or volunteers). People respond to people. It may feel crass to think of a beneficiary as a character, but the idea behind this is to remind you that they are crucial to your impact story and they need to be introduced and developed. ENGAGE AND INSPIRE: It’s hard to relate to a pile of numbers on a page or on a slide. The characters of your story need to have personality if your audience is going to be able to relate to them and be inspired. So bring your characters to life with the language you use and by describing individual cases. Give your characters a voice by using quotes. Remember that different audiences will relate to different things, so always keep in mind who you’re talking to. People engage best with something they can relate to – stories about people similar to themselves or people they know – so bear that in mind too. If you’re speaking, for example, to people in Liverpool you might tell a slightly different story to the one you’d tell in London. If you’re talking to young people, you might tell a different story to the one you’d tell potential funders. SCALE – You can inspire and engage to a certain extent with an individual story, but for your full impact story, you also need to be able to demonstrate the magnitude of your work and achievements. How many people are you working with? Of those, how many people have you helped to achieve positive outcomes? LENGTH – This is very much dependent on who you audience is. Some people want to read war and peace! In general, though, keep it concise. You don’t want your readers to get bored before they get to the punch line. ACCESSIBLE – The key message here is that by presenting a ‘story’ of impact, you’re telling your audience about what you do in an accessible way. You’re presenting your impact in a way that is engaging and easy to understand – you’re not asking your audience to try too hard, to trawl through lots of data to find the point. When you read a story, you don’t have to do the analysis yourself, you don’t have to look at things and think ‘what is this telling me?’, the story speaks for itself. Which is why we talk about a story and not qualitative and quantitative data – that’s hard to understand. Think about what your audience likes, what they will connect with, and how you can get the message across quickly and easily and you can’t go far wrong. So these are the things we think should be considered when an impact story is developed, but what does telling a good impact story mean to your audiences? One of your key audiences is going to be your funders, of course. And luckily Craig has quite a bit of experience in this area! So I’ll pass back to him now to tell you more about why organisations being able to tell a good impact story is important from a funder’s perspective…
- Thanks Craig. So, that’s almost all from us. Just to summarise what we’ve told you today… Think of your impact story as an extended version of an elevator pitch – summarised description of what you do that helps them to ‘get it’ quickly and easily. If you tell someone a good impact story, they should be able to tell that story back to you or to someone else. Like Children in Need can. The appeal night is basically a big impact story, and it works! As you’ve seen today, we’ve drawn on numbers and narrative to an equal extent. While others might disagree, I believe the debate about numbers or narrative is largely redundant because you can’t tell a good impact story without both. There’s a danger of the sector becoming obsessed with standards of evidence and statistics. While we would always promote robust research and evaluation methodologies, it’s important to remember that you don’t have to produce academic papers for your stories to be inspiring and engaging and to do the trick! Most importantly of all, perhaps, is this idea of not making your audience work too hard. Make it simple for them and you’re more likely to get your message across. Do that and you’re more likely to see the results you want! Don’t make your audience try too hard. The debate about numbers of narrative is redundant because you can’t tell a good impact story without both. People like stories – it doesn’t have to be an academic paper, it needs to be inspiring and engaging. More of a novel than a peer reviewed article. In the real world, that’s what makes people engage with organisations.
- We have a few minutes now if you have any questions for either of us.
- If anyone wants my personal address, come and find me after or you can get it from CES.