“Stories we tell ourselves as a society”: Four key takeaways from the Future of Good Storytellers’ Summer Camp

Stories have immense power. And it’s not just books, television, and advertisements, but deeper, underlying narratives that are informing the way we all move about the world.

This is the message attendees heard at a recent Future of Good digital event on storytelling — the stories social impact organizations tell about themselves, about their communities, and about society. Speakers from various organizations and sectors shared how they use stories to make change, why it’s important to examine the subconscious narratives that shape their work, and more. 

Here’s a sample of what we heard:
 

Don’t underestimate the power of stories

Since 2019, Inspirit Foundation has focused its granting on what it calls narrative change — ”really the power of narrative to change everything,” said Sadia Zaman, CEO of Inspirit Foundation.

Narratives influence everything “from policy to our perceptions of others to our perceptions of conflict in the world to the starting of wars to the ending of wars to the climate crisis to the racial and gender equity crisis,” Zaman said. “All of those are really stories we tell ourselves as a society.”

As an example, Zaman pointed to, of course, the pandemic. “The great narrative that we are essentially consumers first and foremost and civic beings secondary….during the pandemic, we were so enmeshed in this idea of our identities as consumers first and foremost that it was a hard slap for a lot of folks to realize that what happened on Bay Street or Wall Street, for example, did not affect our day-to-day lives. But what happened on Main Street absolutely did,” she said. “A lot of what we’re talking about are things that are so prevalent that sometimes, it is just the water that we’re in.”

Inspect your own house first 

If a social purpose organization wants to make change, it should start by critically examining its own story, speakers in the first panel — titled ‘The Message’ — agreed. 

Many of these organizations, particularly those that have been operating for decades (or more), have long histories — histories that produce narratives that in turn inform the work they do today. 

Sharon Nyangweso, founder of Quakelab, a social enterprise that consults organizations on diversity, equity and inclusion, gave a stark example: “If you look at their inception, when banks were created in North America, not only was I not allowed to be in that bank, I was considered the currency,” she said, as a Black woman. “Sure, that’s not the legal case right now, but if that’s the foundation of this institution, we cannot say that that foundation dissipated. That was the foundation it was built on.” 

Nyangweso said there are a series of big questions organizations should ask themselves when embarking on this kind of reflection: “What was our original story? What have we held onto? What are we validating and what are we releasing?” Evelisa Genova, the national director of diversity, equity and inclusion at Scouts Canada — one such organization with a long history — agreed: “Where did we come from?” she asked. “How is that [impacting], intentionally or unintentionally, the way we operate, the assumptions we make today? And then decide from that self-awareness, how do I want to be better? How do I want our organizations to be better?” 

Nyangweso stressed that this can be a difficult exercise for some institutions, considering that the ultimate questions then become: “Do we have a right to be here? Should we continue being here and if we [do], can it be in a way that we have always been here?”

Tyler Boyce, executive director of the national network of frontline queer- and trans-serving organizations Enchante Network, echoed this later on in the day: “Queer folks have always understood that there’s a certain fragility to the institutions around us. There’s something about speaking and advocating against homophobia and transphobia that feels threatening to folks at times…what is it about pointing out our injustice that threatens the collapse of an entire institution? And that’s a question I grapple with a lot when we’re talking about the types of stories that we tell.”
 

Balance realism with solutions 

The second panel of the event focused on the practical aspects of storytelling — once an organization has done the inquiry into its history and the narratives it operates on, how might it tell stories that connect with their communities and move people to become change agents? 

Both speakers on this panel — Boyce and Elise Joshi, who leads strategic direction for Gen Z for Change, a non-profit which uses social media to promote civic participation among Gen Z — are tasked with communicating complicated and often frightening realities. 

For Joshi, that most often means making TikTok content about climate change. And she’s adamant that a solutions-first approach to communicating about the crisis is the best way to inspire action. “Fear can energize people,” she said, “but, for example, if you get into climate doomism of, ‘The climate crisis is happening right now and nobody is doing anything,’ and there’s no call to action, all you’ve done is introduce somebody into the climate movement and told them there is nothing — no solution — happening, and they can’t get involved.” 

Instead, she urged communicators to tell the truth about the reality of climate change — or other complex and daunting issues — but lead with what their audience can and should do about it.
 

“The goal is to get people off the app”

Joshi also stressed that her organization’s social media strategy doesn’t revolve around engagement, such as likes and views — ”the goal is to get people off the app,” she said, and to take action in other ways. So while fear may drive clicks and views on videos about the doom and gloom of the climate crisis, it doesn’t ultimately serve the group’s strategic goals. 

Getting people off the app also serves the purpose of grappling with the harm social media platforms can cause and facilitate. “I think we need to broaden the conversation around hate crimes and accept that hate crimes happen online — and that that needs to be regulated in some way while still protecting the good parts about social media,” said Boyce.

But ultimately, Boyce said, using the platforms for what they were ostensibly originally made to do — build community and make connections — is the antidote: “Community is the most important thing when it comes to dispelling misinformation.”

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