Stories are our most ancient and innate way of communicating, shaping thought, and building societies. The best stories live with us for a long time, even throughout our lives, and help define our beliefs and values.
Real, human stories are at the heart of transformative movements — think of Rosa Parks, Emmett Till, Matthew Shepard, Malala Yousafzai, Greta Thunberg, and countless others. Their stories didn’t just inspire change. They fueled action, shaped policies, and shifted public consciousness.
Simply put, the personal is always political. But oftentimes organizations find that asking for personal stories can cause low engagement, and, if they do get some content, finding the right story for the right moment can be like digging for a needle in a haystack.
Through extensive testing, we’ve found a few key ways that you can drive more, better, and targeted story sharing from your community. By following these simple rules, we recently collected 140,000+ stories for an advocacy organization, each one a powerful testament to the individual experiences that make up a movement.
Create an easy entry
If I said to you right now, “Tell me a story,” you’d probably clam up. But many organizations take that approach, and get similar clammy responses.
A soft start up and easy entry, on the other hand, can help people open up and prime them to share.
For example, a simple yes or no question can inspire your community to recall their own experiences. For example, we used a simple entry with one client’s email list: Have you ever cared for a loved one?
Those who clicked a “yes” button in response were brought to a landing page with the next question: Tell us a bit about some of the hardest parts of caring for a loved one in 10 words or less. The subsequent questions asked for more details and were optional.
We found that adding that “10 words or less” question doubled our previous response rate benchmark.
Nothing is more frightening than a blank page. And nothing is more stunting than a big, open-ended ask — especially when Instagram and Wordle are a swipe or a tab away.
Get specific
Leveraging specific stories is an effective way to immediately convey a need, showcase what an organization is doing to fill that need, and demonstrate how the reader can help. Oftentimes, we find that we need a specific story for specific needs — like someone who has student loan debt, or uses a specific government service.
Ask for the story you want right off the bat. Put it in the email or SMS or ad. You may get lower response rates, but your story quality will skyrocket.
For one partner, we were looking for people with experience using a specific medication, which was slated for a price decrease. In that case, we made the ask easy: A simple yes-or-no option in an email immediately helped identify those on the medication. This was a big time-saver — we were able to corral the most relevant stories on a tight timeline to help the earned media and government affairs teams find the best spokespeople.
We then used the questionnaire form to help funnel these stories further — asking when the supporter last used the medication and if the cost of the medication caused them financial issues. In many situations, short is best for story collection. But when you need that needle in a haystack, ask away.
You can also use a “click if yes” in SMS or ads to limit the work you need to do to find that needle in the haystack.
Make it make sense
Some people just want to share when asked to do so. But most people need to know why you’re asking before getting vulnerable or taking time out of their day — especially if you’re heading into sensitive personal territory. It’s your job to connect the dots for your audience and clarify how their stories will be used.
Yes, you’ll want a disclaimer to cover your bases when it comes to sharing stories widely. But more importantly, you want to share why these stories are important for your mission.
If you plan to share stories on the Hill with lawmakers to show how policies have a real-world impact on their constituents, let your community know. If you want to hear from donors to better understand their point of view and make your work stronger, be clear about that. If you’ll use them on social, say so. Even if you are just providing your community with an outlet — the chance to tell their story — let them know.
We helped one Blue State partner create a call-in line so family caregivers could share their stories easily over the phone. One caller tearfully thanked the organization in his recorded message for just giving him a chance to talk, which made every part of that work worthwhile.
Read every story
For any story sharing campaign, this should be the baseline commitment: Every story submitted will be read and will help the organization better understand their community.
Not every story needs to land on a senator’s desk or end up in ads to be meaningful. But supporters deserve to know that their words will at least be read. Make that commitment in the request for stories and within the organization. Train people up for a few minutes on what to look for: Detailed accounts? Emotive anecdotes? Stories from men/Californians/diabetics? And encourage your team, and yourself, to be open-minded and lift up anything that resonates — you never know what stories will spark inspiration for a future call-to-action or campaign.
If you’re looking to develop better mobilization with more relevant and resonant calls to action, then please do reach out. We’d love to hear from you.