What is “The Why?”

How to Tell Your Story to Different Audiences

Taking the stage to tell a story is no easy feat, but who you’re talking to could determine the amount of nerves you may have. Even if the elements of your story remain mostly unchanged from audience to audience, what you say, and how you say it might depending on whether you’re speaking to fellow organizers or journalists, staff members or funders. Being able to turn up the ask in some portions of your story, or dial back the emotionality in other parts all plays a role in determining how you want your story to land amongst the audience who hears it.

But first… definitions. 

There are always two distinct groups who you want to aim to influence with your story. They are your audience and your target. 

We define audience as the people you have direct access to. They are your fellow organizers, people who already agree with your perspective and point of view, as well as those who can be easily persuaded toward it. 

Meanwhile, your targets are the people who hold the tangible power to bring about the change you want to see in the world. These are funders, politicians, and those who lead systems and institutions who could change the outcomes and impacts of people’s lives with a singular decision. 

When you tell your story in a room full of people be mindful that the audience overall will be composed of these specific segmentations. 

Staff Members 

No matter how large or small your organization, whether you’re fully remote, or meet in an office space, it is important that your team, staff, and colleagues understand “The Why?” of the organization or even a specific project. This requires storytelling whether you’re the Executive Director or a Research Assistant. You have to be able to communicate to your colleagues and staff the importance of the work and how it’s connected to your overall organizational goals. What is the vision? And what value does the work you’re doing provide to support that vision?

The story that you tell to your team may be both personal and politically ideological. Your own core beliefs that also inform and influence your work. The story you tell your team may be informal but it is still a story that should make them reflective about their own values and how they contribute to the vision of the organization. 

For example, one of Narrative Initiative’s core programs is the Changemaker Author’s Cohort which is now entering its third cycle. In explaining “The Why” of this program early in year one, Narrative Initiative Executive Director said succinctly, “We believe literacy is the key to democracy.” While this short sentence wasn’t her entire story, it was the key takeaway of the story she told to a group of colleagues and staff members about the vision for Narrative Initiative as a whole to root strategy for creating a multi-racial democracy in movements for equity and justice, while connecting the goals of the program to make literature from organizers accessible via mainstream publishing as a value added benefit of bolstering a multi-racial democracy. 

You have to remember, if we’re not actively telling a story, a story is being told on our behalf. When it comes to inspiring and leading your team toward action it is imperative that everyone know not only “The Why” of the leadership, but also their own, to make for a cohesive work environment and eager execution of the strategic goals to get you closer toward organizing around and accomplishing the change you want to see in the world. 

Fellow Organizers 

When you’re speaking with fellow organizers it is important to remember that while you all may be doing similar work around the same issue area, how you approach that work and “The Why” behind that work may differ. 

In settings such as conferences and convenings amongst organizers it’s important to tell your story to communicate the areas where you align with others as well as highlight the issues on where you disagree. Using story in this way creates dialogue for the entire movement to address and contend with and helps strengthen the overall coalition. 

Aryampa Brighton, an attorney and human rights defender with the Word Force Changemaker organization CHRD (Coalition for Human Rights in Development) gave a presentation at an international conference about his own personal journey toward becoming a human rights defender. It was adapted into this op/ed where Brighton discusses both how he evolved as a person from wanting to work for big oil and gas companies to defending communities in Uganda against them. At the end of the op/ed Brighton connected his own personal evolution to his movement work to remind fellow organizers and others in the room about why a just transition to community led development was necessary for both people and the planet. 

Not everyone will agree on everything, but storytelling allows for compassion, empathy, grace, and understanding, all necessary elements to build consensus amongst the coalition to do the very important work of organizing for change. 

Journalists 

It’s not often you get to tell your story to journalists, unless of course you call a press conference. Speaking with the media in this way on your own terms allows you to tell a complete and expansive story before you’re peppered with questions meant to find inconsistencies, or interrogate the plausibility of the story you’ve told and the change you’re advocating for. 

With this specific audience, journalists may very well be your targets as they were in this op/ed by Word Force changemaker Terrell Blount, the Executive Director of FICGN (Formerly Incarcerated College Grad Network). In noting how the Associated Press has updated its style guide to use person-first and humanizing language when talking about system-impacted people, Blount urged journalists writ large–from large corporate papers and network conglomerates to local dailies and affiliates–to take the same step and adjust their language to treat system-impacted people with the dignity they deserve. 

While, Blount’s op/ed was not a press conference he was speaking specifically to journalists, his targets, who have the power to change their language at will. The story you tell a target can be rooted in personal history and experience but should also delineate a clear action for that target to take whether it’s something as simple as adjusting the language used on the nightly news or signing a law to close prisons and detention centers. 

When you speak directly to the targets in your audience your goal is to captivate their attention and then give them something to do. Move them to action with your story.

Funders 

Funders are another group you may find yourself telling your story too. But you’re not just telling funders your story so that they can give you more money to support your work. You are telling your story to funders because they have the power to emphasize the work you and your fellow organizers are doing in a way that can lead to actual policy change. 

Using the example of Aryampa Brighton once more, in addition to fellow organizers in the room during his talk, the conference was a gathering of funders invested in development programs in the Global South. His call to action that community development be community led was not only a rallying cry amongst the fellow organizers in the room but a demand on the funders, his targets, to change their practices when supporting projects meant to help the communities they’re working in. 

Funders have power even if they are reluctant to use it by the sheer nature of their impressive balance sheets. Telling them a story should make them open their wallets to continue their silent support, but also pick up a phone or write an email to others in power to emphasize the necessity of the change you’ve been advocating for all along.