“A story is a re-imagined experience narrated with enough detail and feeling to cause your listeners’ imagination to experience it as real,” says storytelling guru and author Annette Simmons.

One of the things that I have learned working in the NGO community for two decades is that we have a hard time telling our story well. In many cases we think we are telling stories but in fact we are not. We are experts in our content areas, we tend to be good at reporting to funders and we can masters at speaking jargon. But we really struggle to make sense of our work, its importance, impact or sometimes is relevance to many others.

Simmons in her new book says, “In this ocean of choice, a meaningful story can feel like a life preserver that tethers us to something safe, important or at the very least more solid than the disembodied voices begging for our attention.”

When millions of people stand up to make poverty history around the world or attend or tune into the Live Aid or Live Earth concerts, wear white bands, open their wallets for Katrina victims or drop off food to their local food bank in record numbers… we know that their is a great hunger to be “tethered” together to something important. Millions are looking for that “life preserver” civil society needs to throw these people a line… by being far more strategic and proficient storytellers.