5 Questions to Ask Before You Ask for Someone’s Story
This is a guest blog by Tim Cage and John Capecci of Living Proof Advocacy (LPA), which helps organizations and individuals harness the power of spoken personal stories to drive positive change. LPA offers online learning, workshops, coaching, and the popular handbook, Living Proof: Telling Your Story to Make a Difference.
A few years ago, the executive director of an international anti-trafficking organization asked us how her team should handle the stories of people with lived experience of modern slavery: “Do you have a recommendation for how our process for collecting and sharing their stories should go?”
We said: “The first step is to ask: how do you—and the community you serve—want this to go?”
The conversation that followed wasn't about how-tos or best practices. It was a values conversation, one that more and more nonprofit leaders are having.
From Delegated Task to Leadership Priority
Too often, nonprofit story work is delegated downward and siloed. The development director needs a donor story, the communications manager needs campaign content, and the engagement lead needs voices for a forum—each working from a functional need rather than shared principles and values.
More and more, though, leaders are recognizing the risk of leaving story practice in a marginal, under-examined place. Rather than waiting until something goes wrong—ethical breaches, real or perceived story appropriation, tokenism, or broken trust—they’re actively defining story practice: the principles guiding how they engage personal stories from lived experience.
If you’re ready to do the same, here are five questions you can ask yourself to define an organizational story practice that is ethical, equitable, respectful—and effective.
Five Questions to Define Your Organization’s Story Practice
What agency does the person sharing their story have?
There’s an implicit power asymmetry between story-caller and story-sharer—so how can you ensure advocates can claim, assert, and preserve their authorship, their voice, and the use of their stories? Can the person you're asking choose whether to share, what to share and where—and change their mind later? Do they understand how their story will be used, where it will appear, and how it will live publicly? (Voice of Witness calls this “ongoing informed consent,” and it's a useful standard.)
What is the benefit to the person sharing their story?
While “knowing that I’m contributing” is gratifying for anyone sharing their stories, in what other ways are they compensated for giving time, expertise and emotional labor? More and more organizations offer a stipend or honorarium. Recognition, connection, and title (Champion, Advocate, or Ambassador, for example) all count, too. So does letting people know the specific impact their stories have had. (Blue Avocado offers a useful overview of the issue.)
Have you created the right environment?
Sharing a personal story publicly is a significant act: personally, emotionally, even physically. Have you created an environment for the story-sharer that is safe, respectful, and non-threatening? Where will they be, who will be in the room, and who is supporting them before, during, and after? Care isn't an add-on to story practice; it's a condition of doing this work well. (“Care” is also an essential aspect of our Whole Advocate Model™.)
Do you know why you're asking for a story?
Putting out a call to “Tell Us Your Story” casts a wide net; the stories you get may not be the ones that support your purpose—and you place potential story-sharers in a quandary as to what to share or what to leave out. Before asking for stories, make sure you know your audience, your message, and what “living proof” you need the storyteller to focus on. (“Focus” is the first of the Five Qualities of a Well-told Advocacy Story.)
Are you privileging certain stories and individuals over others?
It's tempting to reach for the most dramatic, the most emotional, the most harrowing stories. The better move is a strategic one: what story demonstrates the message you're trying to carry? Sometimes that's a calm observation about an ordinary day, not a life-changing narrative. Successful advocacy requires stories big and small, both dramatic and everyday.
The Cornerstones of an Ethical, Effective Story Practice
By exploring these questions, organizations can begin to build the foundation of story practice that:
Is a leadership priority, not a tactical afterthought
Prioritizes individual agency and ongoing consent
Offers equitable benefit and respectful care
Is intentional and strategic
Get the Conversation Started in Your Organization
The principles and values that guide how you engage personal stories from individuals’ lived experience are no less important than those that define your nonprofit’s mission and vision statements. Even if you have a general sense of what those principles and values are, it pays to be intentional and deliberative about defining them—and stating them outright—just as you do with your mission and vision.
To get the conversation started in your organization, download the PDF, “Why You Need to Define Your Personal Story Practice,” to share with your colleagues.
