Storytelling for Change

Acumen and The Ariel Group have created a hands-on course to help you develop your practical skills as a storyteller. Whether you work in an office making presentations in the boardroom, as a teacher with 30 to 300 students, interacting with customers, or one-on-one with individuals, using the elements of story bring you closer to your audience.

Using stories makes your messages memorable, gives your audience something to relate to, and above all captures their attention, motivating and inspiring them in new ways. A story taps into more than one element of communicating. Great storytellers are great communicators and effective leaders.

Acumen believes that storytelling is an essential tool for changing the way the world tackles poverty because it starts with changing conversations around what we see, hear, feel and know to be true. Change leaders see the world’s potential, and tell powerful stories that inspire action.

Key Learning Outcomes:

By the end of this course, participants will:

• Be confident in using stories, especially personal stories, as part of their communication toolkit.
• Know how to tell stories and use a specific set of storytelling skills so that they connect with the hearts and minds of their audiences (an audience of one or many).
• Have developed, rehearsed, and received feedback on one personal story as a replicable model so that they can build a personal “library” or “back pocket” of stories that can be used in different situations.
• Be able to use a 5-step process to integrate story into presentations for change, work, or many other situations.

Course Logistics:

You will be expected to form a Story Team as part of this course. Join the course with a team in mind, or find a team through the platform after the course starts (we will provide more instructions on how to do this in Week 1). All of your team members must be registered to this course through this platform to receive materials. We highly recommend forming a team with people you can meet with in person. If you have a strong internet connection, you could “meet” online as well. Story Team meetings are an important and fun part of the course. This is where you will discuss the material, practice with a friendly audience, and learn from each other.

This course will consist of a mix of team and individual assignments.

The course materials are all provided online and Google Hangout ‘office hours’ will be scheduled twice throughout the course.