Telling a different story: How nonprofit organizations reveal strategic purpose through storytelling
Published Oct 24, 2020 · Sarah‐Louise Mitchell, Moira Clark
Psychology & Marketing
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Abstract
Responding to a call for research into storytelling within the non-profit context, the paper contributes to an emerging research conversation about communicating organisational strategy through storytelling. The research analyses one hundred stories across ten leading organisations to identify how they are being deployed and what that tells us about the underpinning strategy. Through bringing story character, classification, and content together for the first time, the paper presents a holistic perspective on the story construct. It identifies that, when viewed as a whole, the stories told by organisations can be a powerful communication tool for reaching external audiences. However, the research also identifies that their ability to convey strategic purpose through storytelling is moderated by storytelling capability. It finds that organisations with stronger storytelling capability use this craft to differentiate themselves more effectively. It concludes with contributing a new conceptual model for understanding organisational storytelling and a roadmap for practitioners to strengthen storytelling capability.