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In today’s competitive landscape, a powerful narrative is crucial for companies to effectively communicate the entirety of their social impact work and inspire action. A well-crafted narrative not only clarifies your purpose but also rallies employees and resonates with stakeholders. It ensures alignment, consistency, and efficiency across your many different communication channels and materials.

But where do you start?

In this article we will walk through a step-by-step process for developing a compelling social impact strategy narrative that is representative of your core focus areas, demonstrates your impact, resonates with your audience, and sets your organization apart.

Step 1: Laying the Foundation

• Know Your Audience: Identify your primary and secondary audiences for your narrative. What are their needs, interests, and values? This information is crucial for tailoring your narrative to resonate effectively with each audience.
• Take Inventory: Review your current strategy documents, positioning statements, and communications materials. Identify gaps, inconsistencies, and areas for improvement.
• Tap Your Team: Conduct interviews or focus groups with key employees to gather diverse perspectives on your social impact efforts. This will help uncover the strengths, challenges, and aspirations related to your initiatives.
• Learn from Others: Examine how peer organizations are framing their social impact narratives. What language do they use? How do they convey their impact? This will help identify best practices, emerging trends, common terminology, and opportunities for differentiation.

Step 2: Crafting your Narrative

• Identify Your Core Message: Define the central theme or idea you want to convey. Is your innovative approach what sets you apart? Your company’s distinctive history? Clarify the unique value proposition of your social impact work and determine the language and terminology that will resonate most with your audience. Be mindful of any words or phrases you feel detract from your messaging or are misaligned to your work.
• Develop and Test Your Narratives: Leverage your insights to create several narrative options that showcase your company’s specialized approach. Organize a workshop with key team members to present these narratives, solicit feedback, and build consensus around the essential elements of your story.

Step 3: Refine & Finalize

• Incorporate Feedback: Refine the narratives based on feedback, refining language and adjusting key messages to ensure they effectively communicate your social impact goals.
• Test the Language: Validate the revised narratives with both internal and external stakeholders. Gather feedback to ensure clarity, appeal, and resonance with your target audience(s).
• Bring it to Life: Finalize the core language and positioning to ensure consistency and alignment with your broader communications strategy.  The narrative should clearly convey the “what” and “why” behind your social impact strategy, making it easy for employees and external stakeholders to understand and remember your approach.
• Integrate into Communications: Incorporate your finalized narrative into your company’s broader communications strategy, ensuring it’s reflected across all channels and touchpoints. Regularly review and update the narrative to reflect any changes in your overarching social impact strategy or feedback from stakeholders.

By following these steps, corporate social impact professionals can craft a narrative that not only clarifies (and simplifies) their strategy, but also inspires and engages their audiences. A well-articulated social impact narrative can drive greater alignment within the organization and enhance your company’s reputation among stakeholders.

Interested in enhancing your social impact narrative? Changing Our World is happy to help. Reach out to learn more about our facilitated workshops and social impact communications support.

Author

Maureen Flynn,
Vice President, Changing Our World.