Inspire by Story

Yesterday  I helped RISE Youth co-founder Baillie Aaron on her story for inspiring engagement with her organisation.

Baillie herself is completely inspired and had a great start to begin with. Thanks to her ultra-intelligence, we were able to take the story up a few notches at warp-speed. She’d tell a bit, I’d interrupt and suggest, we’d re-word and then move on.

“Too often, we stop listening to people’s stories by their opening lines. John ensured that when I next tell mine, it won’t be forgotten. On behalf of RISE Youth, sincere thanks to John and Inspire by Story for enabling charities to compellingly communicate their visions — and for helping founders get one step closer to realizing their own entrepreneurial dreams ”
- Baillie Aaron

I so love the cyclic process of coaching an inspiring story out of someone.

It’s like I’m helping them mine for the diamonds inside of them.

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“The very first thing I’d like to say is that we haven’t stopped “filling the gap” since John’s session.

John left us with a much better (perhaps much more beautiful and artistic) way of understanding City Year’s mission. John was effective at drawing out information and giving a new perspective on things. Even though it was a relatively short session, he introduced a good ‘formula’ for delivering our message – using a story format and making it personal – and allowed us time to practice and improve it.

Although there were several different aspects of City Year I feel from our stories and perspectives alone he summarised and channelled the important aspects. It was overall a new perspective on what we already know, but can now deliver it in a far more effective way (and have already been using the tips and tools he gave us).”

- Kim Dang, City Year London

Underestimating the brisk walk from Kings Cross station to City Year London headquarters, I arrived a bit late for my appointment.

The place was dark, but a warm welcoming sign on the front door touting my logo made it clear there were people waiting for me inside.

Four volunteers wearing red City Year jackets and myself sat around a big boardroom table, the kind that always makes people feel so far away that I end up stretching my arms all the way across it as I speak.

The challenge I was there to help with was communicating what City Year actually is and does. The charity, although large and recognised in the USA, has only been in London for two years and so most people have no idea who they are or what they do.

In other words, I was there to help them answer the question “What is City Year?”

The example situation we used to build the story from was when a volunteer is on a lunch break and a stranger asks then “What’s with the red jacket?”

The response they had been using was a corporate-like monologue explaining the organisation.

“We are a charity for 18-25 year olds as a year-long volunteer that supports education and communities through blah blah blah boooooring.”

And you could tell by the way they said it that they knew it was boring.

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This afternoon I sat with Mike Mompi at one of my favourite cafe’s in East London, Market Coffee. Although I wanted a late, while waiting for Mike I drank a Jasmine flower tea, because I am *trying* to cut back on coffee. (I had a coffee two hours later!)

When Mike sat down, I told him how although curious and tempted, I’d intentionally NOT read up on his organisation MyBnk before meeting with him.

“I like to hear a clients story with fresh ears,” I told Mike.

Mike Mompi, Strategist at MyBnk

Per request, Mike launched into his story about MyBnk and the project he was working on.

MyBnk’s simple juxtaposition of banking and non-profit had peaked my curiosity, so I was attentive, in the least, to make sense of it. Mike’s charisma and enthusiasm also kept me engaged and there were some really interesting hooks.

Like how through playing games kids would learn about money. And how kids would actually save real money. And that they were already being sought by and are discussing partnerships with some of the world’s biggest brands.

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“John you really really helped me with my presentation. I was a bit skeptical initially of how useful it would be to talk it through with someone – but you really clarified the story telling aspect that is so important to presentations, and gave me a lot of confidence too!” – Sarah Teacher

Over the course of an hour in the Gerard Bar  at The RSA I talked with Sarah Teacher about her presentation for the African Innovation Prize at the Youth Funding Network event tonight. She had a powerpoint slideshow prepared and a pile of notes on the back of postcards of white horses.

I let Sarah tell me her story as prepared first. She started by explaining the genocide in Rwanda. While feeling the horror, I noticed myself asking “Why?”. It was so distracting that I missed a couple of minutes of her talk. When I came back to her she was explaining how her organisation had created a partnership between students at Cambridge University and students at a University in Rwanda.

The goal was to stimulate the economy in Rwanda by helping smart students to become entrepreneurs. [click to continue…]

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Today I met with Stefan Baskerville, a lead organiser for London Citizens.

For 45 minutes I listened to him emphatically tell his inspiring story about the heroic and exciting activism he has led for the hard-working underpaid citizens of London.

Stefan’s stories were already brilliant.

In the 10 minutes left after finishing listening to his stories, as quickly as I could, I pointed out which parts created the strongest emotional impact.

I also helped him to develop a very clear “ask” for the end of his pitch, which he will be giving tomorrow night at the Youth Funding Network event.

Lastly, and probably most importantly for him, I showed Stefan how to seed the ideas of his “ask” into the stories themselves – so that by the time he got to the point when he needed to ask people for help, they not only felt they wanted to make a difference, but they also already understood how they could.

You want people to not only feel they want to help before you ask them, you want them having a clear picture about how they actually can.

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I met with Ayesha Mustafa to help her improve the story she was telling about her brand Fashion Compassion.

We started with helping Ayesha to clarify who her different audiences were, because a story often needs to be slightly different depending on who it is being told to.

In the same way you wouldn’t tell a 5 year old a story the same way you would tell it to a 50 year old, Ayesha needed to tell her story differently to the press, stores & retailers, customers and potential “sneezers”.

The reality is that Ayesha wanted people in each of these groups all to be inspired by Fashion Compassion, but she wanted them to take different actions as a result of that inspiration.

We thus next worked on what the specific actions she wanted people in these groups to take and we then tailored her story around each of these outcomes.

Next, I helped Ayesha find some really strong “hooks” to use in her stories, such as highlighting peace through high fashion amidst political controversy and utilising the uncommon juxtaposition of high-fashion and social responsiblity.

Often my clients, who are “inside the story”, tend to skip over the kinds of rich details that make a story engaging.

Lastly, I helped Ayesha to bring her stories to life by adding more sensory rich language to it.

This simple tool pulls people in and really engages them in what you are saying, often creating a higher level of empathy and leading to more likely action.

Learn more about Fashion Compassion here:
www.fashioncompassion.co.uk
www.facebook.com/pages/Fashion-ComPassion/126294230758267

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After being interviewed by Genevieve de Lacaze for her upcoming book about people who are making a living from their passions, she contacted me asking for some help forming the story for her book overall.

We met at the Gerard Bar in The RSA, where I was a newly accepted fellow.

Over tea and into her little voice recorder, I asked Genevieve a version of one of the most important questions I ask all my clients: When your reader finishes the last few words of your book and then closes the cover, what would you like to have happen?

From her response, we started developing very clear outcomes for the book.

We were then able to identify who the target readers may be.

With this insight – who the story was for and what it needed to do – Genevieve’s creative flow of how to tell the Living Passion’s story was unleashed and her inspiring story began to really take shape.

Learn more about the Living Passion Project.

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Ayitimoun Yo Orphanage provides housing and professional psychological therapy for street children in Anse-a-Pitre, Haiti, to help them overcome the trauma of sexual and physical violence.

“It went so well, I’m actually still walking on some strange cloud of disbelieve. I raised £2.200!!!, (with the second highest donation being £1.800) – So please give yourself a pat on the back, I assign at least these £400 to your help. Also I got in contact with some people that might wanna support our project in the future and get me in contact with other potential donors. Wow. wow. wow.”
- Constanze von Hartmann, Co-Founder

The evening before she was to give a presentation to the Youth Funding Network (YTFN), I sat with Constanze von Hartmann, co-founder of Ayitimoun Yo Orphanage in Haiti.

Selin Taylor of YTFN was there too, the three of us huddled over a small table at an upstairs Cafe Costa in St Pancras International Station in London.

It was the only time we could all get together within the month leading up to Constanze’s presentation.

This was going to be the first time her orphange had spoken at an event for funding.

She was hopeful and she had a story prepared.

I listened as she told  us, taking notes, but staying mostly engaged, because it was already a very good story.

First I discussed with Selin if as much “information” about the organisation needed to be in there.

Once we got the OK to take some of that stuff out, it made room for making Constanze’s story even better.

I pointed out some places in the story where I thought things could be tweaked to make it even more engaging and I explained an inspiring structure her story could follow.

Finally, and I think most importantly, I coached Constanze to not hold back from describing certain difficult things because she was worried that people might find them offensive.

Check out Ayitimoun Yo on Facebook!

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