What’s Your Story?The Power of Storytelling

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IntroductionsPart One:• What’s Storytelling• The 4 Planks of Effective Storytelling Part Two:• Review Story Checklist• What’s Your Story? Group Exercise

Today’s Agenda

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• What exactly is "storytelling"? • What are the elements of a good story?• How many of you routinely gather and use stories?

Storytelling

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• Griot. Raconteur. Bard. Jongleur. Spinner of yarns. Named by a thousand words, storytellers have shaped our societies and the way we think for centuries.

• In certain Native American cultures, stories are so important that every question is answered by a story.

A Long and Strong Tradition

Stories Connect us to Others

• Storytelling is a way to reach out, connect and share something with others.

• Stories have to come from your heart before they will go to people’s heads.

• Stories need to carry your key messages and inspire people to take action.

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1. You need a hero your audience can both root for and relate to.

2. Your hero must face conflict and overcome challenges.3. You need to use the right pictures and words to make

your story compelling.4. Forget about the facts and figures to avoid “Literal

Sclerosis.” Too many facts will put your audience to sleep!!!

The 4 Planks of Effective Storytelling

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• Dorothy Gale leaves home against her will, gets lost, finds many obstacles, overcomes every challenge and eventually achieves her goal of getting back home.

Message: There’s No Place Like Home

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• Your story needs a “hero” who is relatable and made more human and compelling through the effective use of pictures and words.

• Love’s Story...

1. A Hero Your Audience Can Relate to

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Love’s Story Video . . .

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• You need a hero who has a goal and faces challenges reaching their goal – it's called “conflict.”

• You need stories where the hero has to climb mountains and fight dragons to rescue the princess.

• So when you tell stories, enliven them by saying what the hero is trying to achieve and what is standing in the way.

2. The Use of Conflict

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3. The Right Use of Pictures

The Crisis of Childhood Hunger

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• Hunger has an emotional impact on children. Feelings of anxiety and hostility toward others can result from chronic hunger.

• Teachers have a name for the anxiety that surrounds weekends and summer: “Friday panic!”

• It’s the time, late in the day, when they see their students hoarding and hiding food for the weekends.

• “They feel desperate because they’re afraid they’re not going to have enough to eat,” said Lorena Cabello, a former kindergarten teacher. “Imagine the fear of going all summer long without enough to eat.”

The Right Use of Words: Friday Panic!

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Beam Me Up, Scottie!

• The right picture and words help your audience visualize the setting and become immersed in the story.

• They become transported to a new reality through the hero's eyes. • Powerful stories take donors on journeys and they tend to carry that

story around inside of them. It becomes part of who they are and cause the to take action.

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• A hero you can relate to – a story with compelling words and images.

Rewadia’s Story

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Preview New Video

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It’s Your Turn . . .

What’s your story

• Checklist for identifying a good story: Is this a story I want to tell? Does it have the right hero – is he/she relatable?Does the story have a heartbeat? Is the story transformative? Does it transport us?Does it sound like us? Does it have the right mix of pictures and words? Will it make the listener want to do something?