Storytelling is an essential component of community building.
Community builders take on some of the most important and challenging roles in our society. You’re directors, managers, social workers, communicators, educators, and more - doing the work, holding countless different titles, and sometimes no title at all. No matter the label, you’re a connector. You see the potential of the people around you, and believe that if we’re all able to come together with a shared sense of purpose we may be able to make our world a better place.
As a storytelling video producer and creative director, you’re my community. Unfortunately, the way the creative industry generally serves community builders like you is broken. We tend to silo storytelling as a marketing function, employing slow and expensive techniques, and engaging with narrative in the context of one-off or occasional projects. As a consequence, marketing firms and video producers typically fail to tell the full, authentic stories of our communities, or motivate any real progress. Our toughest problems require a more systemic approach.
That’s why I do what I do: helping communities and their leaders to tackle their toughest problems strategically, by building their own storytelling systems.
What’s a "toughest problem”?
Our toughest problems are those critical challenges that can only be meaningfully addressed through the collective actions of a connected community. These are really big, systemic problems, with shared costs (and often existential consequences.) At a macro level these problems are often described as global issues like public health, education, climate change, hunger, economic instability, institutional racism, and political polarization. But we often engage with specific threads of these problems, too - through the mission of an organization, the purpose of a team, or a thread that is especially important in a local community. For many of us, the hope of beginning to untangle these types of problems is why we take on some type of leadership role.
A thoughtful framing of our toughest problems can serve as an effective core for our community building efforts. Community often requires that we transcend cultural or linguistic barriers, address deeply ingrained prejudices or biases, and navigate complex power dynamics. Connection across such barriers and boundaries often requires a combination of empathy, creativity, and strategic thinking, as well as a willingness to listen to and learn from diverse perspectives within the community. And to do that, we need storytelling that builds culture and fuels change.
So why build storytelling systems?
Telling a single story can be a powerful way to communicate a message and spark connection with an audience. It's a natural starting point that I’ve taken while working with countless organizations, because it’s a great way focus on a specific idea or experience and convey it in a way that is clear and compelling. This can be effective within a limited context, but our toughest problems require more sustained effort and attention than even the most compelling single story can provide.
Storytelling systems take a more comprehensive and collaborative approach to storytelling. Rather than relying on a single story, a storytelling system involves engaging over a longer period of time with a community to co-create a shared narrative that reflects the diversity of experiences and perspectives within a community. Storytelling systems can be developed and supported through the work of someone like me, but the goal should always be for the community to directly take on the essential functions of its storytelling system. This is your story, and it should flow throughout everything you do.
The stories that come out of this systemic approach are more effective because they are:
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A storytelling system involves engaging with a wide range of stakeholders in the storytelling process, which can help to ensure that the full range of experiences and perspectives within a community are represented.
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In a storytelling system, community members are invited to co-create the narrative, which can help to build relationships, trust, and collective action towards a shared goal.
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By involving a range of stakeholders in the storytelling process, a storytelling system can help to efficiently build a shared understanding of the issue or experience over time. This can help to create sustained momentum towards achieving change and addressing systemic issues.
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Storytelling systems can help to shift the power dynamics and narratives that underpin systemic issues, creating the potential for transformative change.
When we build a storytelling system, we’re creating a cultural framework that empowers leaders and community members to tell their own stories, while also ensuring that those stories are aligned with a shared sense of purpose and a strategic vision for change. Strategic work within this system can build momentum and lead to measurable progress, both in terms of community engagement and our toughest problems.
If we aspire to systemic change, we must build our own systems.
Start building your storytelling system
Over the course of my 20+ year career, I’ve learned a lot of lessons about how to do this as efficiently and effectively as possible. I’ve distilled my foundational framework for storytelling systems practice into a single working document, called the Storytelling System Canvas.
Download your free canvas PDF to get started:
Framing your toughest problem
Finding the right unifying theme
Mapping your story sources and audience for engagement
Planning a storytelling cycle structure & cadence
Identifying your co-creative team
Choosing the right ways to measure success
This canvas is a starting point that grows with the system, from familiarization to first back-of-napkin sketch, on through refinement and optimization.
What’s your story?
Have a question? Ready to start building community with story? Let’s get in touch.