3) How does it work?
http://www.demonstratingvalue.org/blogs/expressing-your-organizational-value-describing-value
"In recent years, funders and donors have increasingly emphasized evaluation and accountability in the organizations they support. Voluntary sector organizations have generally responded by undertaking organization, program and project evaluation activities. And while support has often been provided to assist organizations in their evaluation efforts, there has been little focus on conveying the stories that are behind the evaluations. Dissemination of evaluation results has often not been undertaken, not reached relevant audiences, or not been communicated in an appropriate or meaningful way. Yet the organizations have never had a shortage of compelling stories to draw upon – they have just not often used them or been expected to use them in their reports, evaluations and other communications." The Storied Organization: VSERP Communicating Value, Inviting Caring, Celebrating Success http://www.cfc-fcc.ca/doc/StorytellingDec2002.pdf
Describing Your Organizational Value
Describing your impact involves using words to demonstrate your value, and is often complemented with stories, quantitative information and monetized estimates of value. It includes both describing what you’re doing and why it makes a difference. Some important questions to answer when describing value include:
- What is the key information about the operating context for your enterprise that makes your work meaningful? If your enterprise’s story is in the foreground, what is in the background?
- How does your social enterprise meet a community need and contribute to social and environmental change? What is the extent of this change? The nature of this change? The nuances of this change? What are the goals and expectations of your social enterprise, and what is your progress towards them?
- How does your social enterprise add value when compared with a ‘standard’ enterprise relative to public or non-profit models that seeks to address similar social and/or environmental objectives?
- How has your social enterprise contributed to innovation in strategies to meet community needs, and create social and environmental change?
- How do you engage your audience when describing these details? By creating a compelling story!
Using Storytelling to Describe Organizational Value
Storytelling is an increasingly widespread tool for organizations to capture the hearts and minds of their different stakeholders. It can greatly enhance “information” – whether it’s in the form of numbers or factual information about your activities. Many charities and non-profits have found success sharing information via Facebook timeline, or through the creation of infographics. Once data is transformed into something visual, suddenly it becomes increasingly interesting and memorable.
A great example is this website from the http://www.cfc-fcc.ca/doc/StorytellingDec2002.pdf South East Vancouver neighbourhood of South Hill. It draws in the viewer through an interactive collection of personal narratives, enhancing the significant details of the neighbourhood. Thanks to Alexandra Tudose for sharing this great website with us!
Organizational narratives and aspects of change are often known by the people within your social enterprise. Storytelling can bring out this knowledge and communicate it in a compelling way to others, particularly for social change that is often complex and difficult to capture in other ways.