Workshop on Storytelling and policy advocacy

Organizations working to get research and evidence - in a wide range of areas - incorporated into policy often rely on the discredited ‘deficit model’ of science communication. The deficit model assumes decision-makers just lack the correct information, and that all they need are the ‘facts’, in order to create evidence-based policies. But we know from a vast amount of research that this is not how human decision-making works, and it’s not how political decision-making works. We also know that storytelling can be really effective in conveying messages and persuading people in a wide range of contexts.

Workshop Outline

This workshop, informed by my research and experience helping a wide range of organizations around the world use storytelling effectively in their advocacy for evidence-informed policy, will cover the following topics:

Why simply providing policymakers with ‘the evidence’ is not enough to bring about change.
- Why stories play an important role in individual decision-making.
- Two reasons stories are important in the complicated political context of policy making

The limits of focusing only on ‘evidence’. What do we mean when we talk about ‘evidence’?

The pros and cons of storytelling in policy advocacy

Guidelines for telling effective stories:
- Clarifying your goal
- How to structure a compelling story
- Telling systemic stories
- The role of language, imagery and metaphor
- Dealing with numbers
- Visual storytelling

Case studies of the use of storytelling in policy advocacy

Discussion of participants’ examples and challenges

Duration:

Time: 90 Minutes (remote)

Price:

$1000/group of 10-15 people (from a single organization)

$100/person (individual participants)

Consulting on Storytelling and Policy Advocacy:

In addition to the workshop, I am available to discuss with organizations how they might develop a strategy and action plan for using storytelling effectively for a specific policy advocacy campaign or project.