{"id":772,"date":"2005-09-23T06:22:06","date_gmt":"2005-09-23T13:22:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2005\/09\/remembering_how_to_tell_good_s\/"},"modified":"2005-09-23T06:22:06","modified_gmt":"2005-09-23T13:22:06","slug":"remembering_how_to_tell_good_s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/remembering_how_to_tell_good_s.php","title":{"rendered":"Remembering how to tell good stories"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The opening keynote of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/006002.php\">New Jersey conference<\/a> I&#8217;m attending was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.agoodmanonline.com\/about\/index.html\">Andy Goodman<\/a>, a communications consultant to nonprofit organizations with a previous life as a television scriptwriter and radio syndicator. Goodman reminded us of the power and humanity of storytelling when communicating a nonprofit&#8217;s message, and he showed painfully familiar examples of how far many of us have strayed from the craft (complex powerpoints, numbing statistics and charts, dry detail).<\/p>\n<p>There are lots of helpful thoughts on the subject in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.agoodmanonline.com\/newsletter\/index.html\">Goodman&#8217;s monthly newsletter<\/a>, but the heart of his message was this: every organization should strive to discover their core stories, the stories that define them, and ensure that <i>everyone<\/i> in the organization (staff, board, supporters) know these stories by heart. Among them might be:<\/p>\n<ul><i><\/p>\n<li><b>the &#8221;nature of your challenge&#8221; story<\/b><br \/>\na personal story that explains why you exist<\/p>\n<li><b>the &#8221;how we started&#8221; story<\/b><br \/>\nwhat personalities and barriers led to your beginning?<\/p>\n<li><b>the &#8221;emblematic success&#8221; story<\/b><br \/>\na success story that exposes your unique impact on the world<\/p>\n<li><b>the &#8221;performance&#8221; story<\/b><br \/>\na story of your staff or leadership in action<\/p>\n<li><b>the &#8221;striving to improve&#8221; story<\/b><br \/>\na story that explores your efforts to get better at what you do, or remove barriers to being better<\/p>\n<li><b>the &#8221;where are we going&#8221; story<\/b><br \/>\na vision for the future, told in a personal narrative<br \/>\n<\/i><\/ul>\n<p>It&#8217;s ironic that arts organization, which are creatures of compelling human stories and engaging narratives, should have to be reminded of the power of stories. But take a critical look at your own communications, presentations, and mission statement, and you may discover you&#8217;ve drifted a bit from the path, as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The opening keynote of the New Jersey conference I&#8217;m attending was Andy Goodman, a communications consultant to nonprofit organizations with a previous life as a television scriptwriter and radio syndicator. Goodman reminded us of the power and humanity of storytelling when communicating a nonprofit&#8217;s message, and he showed painfully familiar examples of how far many [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-772","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}