Why Ethical Storytelling Matters
Impact stories can center on students’ resilience rather than their hardships. Here’s how.
Developing impact stories is a vital part of fundraising. But how can advancement professionals approach storytelling ethically?
Bree Grim and Bianca Milevoj of The Evergreen State College explored that at CASE’s Stewardship and Donor-centered Advancement online conference in June 2021.
At the Olympia, Washington, U.S., college, Grim (Campaign Coordinator & Assistant to the Associate Vice President for Development), and Milevoj (then Development Officer), frequently collaborated with scholarship students. The stories they crafted were shared via multiple platforms, including print, web, and direct mail.
In storytelling, protecting the students is a priority, they said.
“When we’re talking about ethical storytelling, we’re talking about telling students’ stories in ways that are ethical for them, protecting their most vulnerable information,” said Milevoj, who departed Evergreen in July 2022. “We are looking at stories through the lens of what impacts sharing this information can have on a student when it’s received by different audiences over different lengths of time on various platforms.”
Grim and Milevoj became aware of the term “ethical storytelling” through the site Community-Centric Fundraising and an article by fundraiser Nel Taylor.
Taylor wrote about transitioning out of homelessness and working with an arts nonprofit. They’d tell their story to donors, but “it didn’t take long before the story no longer felt like my own,” they write.
“I don’t fault the organization for this at all—because this is how it’s always been done. This work eventually led me down a path to a professional development career, and for that I’m extremely grateful. But… I decided I would do it differently,” they wrote.
This article struck a note with Grim and Milevoj. The pair began to recognize that impact stories follow a common formula: “Jimmy had a hard time. Jimmy found our organization. Suddenly Jimmy’s problems are gone.”
“[But] we know that’s not realistic,” Grim said. “We really want to work with students in a way that uplifts their stories and gives them an opportunity to explore the development of their own stories, as well as conveying gratitude and the impact of giving to the donors who make it possible.”
The aforementioned typical impact story structure can be powerful but can also focus unnecessarily on a student’s hardships in a way that can come across as exploitative. Now, Evergreen's team has changed the structure of the stories to highlight where the student is today, centering the student’s resilience rather than their hardships. They’ve also concentrated more on organizational storytelling, which provides the opportunity to tell multiple individuals’ stories and focus on how Evergreen meets different students’ needs.
“Ultimately when you’re sharing stories with donors, what they want to see is: how are [their] contributions meaningful? How are these funds doing great work?” Grim said.
Grim and the Evergreen team are continually learning how to tell impactful, uplifting, empowering stories through their collaborations with the students and the scholarship office.
Using some of the lessons from the Nel Taylor article, they developed a workshop with an “ethical storytelling compass.” In the workshop, team members practice taking anonymous student interviews and engage with the content through the lens of ethical storytelling. Throughout 2021 and into 2022 the two led workshops with the advancement team, incorporating lessons they shared at the CASE conference.
One of the crucial questions they examine is staff members’ responsibility to students, especially insofar as consent. It’s essential, Milevoj said, that students are fully aware of the context in which the story will be used, the medium of presentation, the lifespan of the story, and the size of the audience.
“Being transparent about that information is really crucial,” she said. “Throughout the development of the story, the process of interviewing the student, drafting the story, editing, and proofreading, the student is involved in each step.”
Before a story is published, Evergreen staff get the students’ approval. The team has implemented an extensive editorial and proofing process in which, among other steps, they flag sensitive information that students might want to keep private, such as information about citizenship status, health matters, finances, or family issues.
Some students, Grim said, consent to share parts of their scholarship essays, “which are beautiful pieces to draw powerful stories from, but we are also faced with a lot of responsibility in selecting what we should use and what we should follow up on. That is something we take very seriously and requires a lot of consideration.”
During interviews with students, staff begin by asking the student: “What do you feel is most important to share with supporters?” This open-ended question gives students the opportunity to elevate what is most important to them.
“First and foremost, our goal is for the student to feel proud of the story we’re telling,” said Milevoj. “Our second goal is to convey meaningful impact to our community of supporters and inform them of the ways philanthropy can impact a student’s educational journey.”
While ethical storytelling is a hot topic in the nonprofit sector, Grim and Milevoj said there is still plenty of room for growth in the higher education advancement realm.
Ultimately, ethical storytelling takes balance and honesty, Milevoj pointed out.
“Students often share really powerful stories about their lives and obstacles they face,” she said. “It’s moving to hear and it’s hard to find that perfect balance between highlighting the reality of what someone’s experience has been while also excavating what’s most important for our community of supporters to hear.”
Article for Currents Magazine at CASE, November 2022