Stories Matter

What is it?

Stories matter. From the Lascaux cave drawings to sofa binging Netflix sagas, storytelling is universal to the human experience. All cultures have told stories. Stories told through voice and gesture. Stories told through poems, and songs, and proverbs and prayer. Stories hidden in palimpsests, woven into fabrics or saved for the last moment at the end of the credits.

Stories matter. They can save lives, win wars, and change the world. Stories can make us more empathetic as people. They can help us build connections through shared history, memories and experience. By telling a story rather than merely reciting dry facts, we remember the details more clearly.

Stories matter. How we tell those stories is constantly evolving. From inscriptions in stone, to the printed word, to digital ink, technology is creating new tools and approaches to leverage the power of storytelling.

Stories matter. But who tells those stories is also changing. The narrator is evolving. Could the rise of AI and algorithms signal the death of the creative? Once upon a time, poets asked the Muses to inspire them as they recited the epics. What happens when those Muses are programmable?

Why should I care?

There are currently over 169,000 charities registered in England and Wales. That number is rising by around 5,000 a year. So how do you cut through the noise to reach supporters?

In a world where people scroll past your comms, walk past your adverts or blank your collection buckets, how do you engage with an audience? How do you connect with them and motivate them to join your mission and support your cause? How do you look past demographics to speak to the individual?

The most powerful asset you hold are your stories. By putting storytelling at the heart of your comms you can increase visibility, stand out from the crowd and speak to those who connect with your voice. Real stories, sometimes filmed on a phone, sometimes told in a tweet, that communicate the change possible or impact created by supporting a charity.

Real stories matter. Your stories matter. Your stories have the power to connect communities, to motivate people and to drive change. Your stories can change the world.

Over the next 12 weeks we’re going to explore how storytelling is changing, what’s driving those changes, and where are the opportunities for charities to generate income and impact.

Join us as we explore the future of storytelling and engagement.

4 Types of Storytelling

Let’s start with the basics. There are four types of storytelling: oral, visual, written and digital.

Oral storytelling: One of the oldest storytelling forms is the spoken word. Oral traditions passed down through generations. Sharing our history, knowledge and culture. With the advent of new forms of technology like radio and podcasts, the art form of oral storytelling now has the ability to reach millions of people all at once.

Visual storytelling: Images offer a powerful way to convey stories. From basic depictions on the walls of caves, through complex pictographic symbols and hieroglyphs, to the modern art of film and television.

Written storytelling: As long as there have been written words, there have been written stories. As societies developed alphabets, oral and visual forms of storytelling were transcribed into written short stories and epics. New technology has created new forms of expression: from folklore to newspapers to novels to ebooks.

Digital storytelling: Technology has transformed the way that we tell stories. The rise of television, film, and radio has led to new and innovative storytelling techniques. The internet offers an endless library of compelling stories from throughout human history with a simple click of a button. Millions of Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook users tell their own personal stories with their own points of view every day. Social media has made us all storytellers.

The Power of Objects

Visual storytelling isn’t limited to pictures or images. Objects can tell powerful stories and empower the viewer to explore the narrative in their own way.

The Red Dress Project, conceived by British artist Kirstie Macleod, provides an artistic platform for women around the world, many of whom are marginalised and live in poverty, to tell their personal stories through embroidery. From 2009 to 2021 pieces of the Red Dress have travelled the globe being continuously embroidered onto. The garment has been worked on by 239 women and 5 men, from 28 countries, with all 136 commissioned artisans paid for their work. The rest of the embroidery was added by 108 volunteers.

Suffrage in Stitches is a 300-metre textile work created during the 125th anniversary year of women’s suffrage in New Zealand. The final work matches the length of the suffrage petition, signed by 31,872 women and presented to Parliament in 1893. Together, the panels tell the stories of those who signed the petition and the subsequent generations. It is made from recycled materials and more than 27,000 individual stitches – one stitch for each signature on the petition that still exists, all done by hand. The project was devised by Vinnies Re Sew, a sewing space funded by St Vincent de Paul in Wellington.

“S,” is a novel by J. J. Abrams and Doug Dorst. From the outside, it looks like an old library book, called “Ship of Theseus” and published, in 1949, by V. M. Straka (a fictitious author). Open it up, though, and you see that the real story unfolds in Straka’s margins, where two readers, Eric and Jen, have left notes for each other. Between the pages, they’ve slipped postcards, photographs, newspaper clippings, letters—even a hand-drawn map written on a napkin from a coffee shop. To solve the book’s central mystery—who is V. M. Straka —you have to read not just “Ship of Theseus,” but all of Jen and Eric’s handwritten notes.