About the Workshop

Most organizations agree that in order to stand out in a crowded, noisy world, they need to tell powerful, compelling stories. Unfortunately, all too often, the stories that organizations tell venture into challenging ethical waters and run the risk of alienating or unintentionally exploiting the very people they seek to serve.

We will explore the following topics:

• The Power and Risk of Telling Stories: In this introductory segment,we discuss the historical role that story has played in community building and some of the science behind why storytelling is so potent. Next, we help participants tap into the vulnerability that sharing stories requires by asking them to share stories in small groups.

• Navigating the Ethical Maze: In this section, we present several case studies that illuminate common ethical challenges that organizations face. Among other things, these challenges include ensuring that the storyteller isn’t re-traumatized by the act of telling their story. By working through these examples, we push participants to see stories through a new lensand introduce concrete tools and strategies they can use to navigate the ethical landscape more effectively.

• Design Challenge: The final part of the workshop is giving participants a laboratory to apply some of the concepts and tools that they’ve just learned like focusing on growth over hardship and obtaining deep consent from storytellers. We ask participants to think about what story collecting and storytelling looks like within their organizations and then, alone and in small groups, to design a set of potential tools and policies that they can bring back to their organizations.

Throughout the workshop participants will gain a greater awareness of the potential issues and unconscious biases that often go unnoticed or unmentioned in nonprofit storytelling. By the workshop’s end, they will have concrete actions, tools and techniques to navigate these challenges at their own organizations.

“Ethical Storytelling: Navigating the Maze” can be scheduled for your retreat, conference, or event  as a highly interactive workshop of 3 hours or more (depending on the size and needs of your group). For additional details about the speech or the workshop, please click the link on the right or call us directly at 323.272.4737.