Narrative & Story as a Levers for Systems Change

Exploring how people see things means embracing story. Stories are to human systems what cells are to biological systems. They hold our values, beliefs, and logics. Just like DNA enables the replication of life, stories enable the replication of culture. If we want to stop replicating the status quo, and construct a different reality, then we need to change the story.

As described by Steven R. Corman, the Director of Arizona State University's Center for Strategic Communication, "the real power of narrative lies in the connections between stories." Narratives can operate at a broad cultural level ("master narratives") as well as at a local level, and a personal level.

Master narratives are those "which endure over time and are broadly known by members of a culture." Personal narratives are central to who we are and how we act in the face of threats and opportunities. Local narratives are "systems of stories about events in the here-and-now [which...] ground master narratives in contemporary events and define a place where individuals can cast themselves in roles, aligning their personal narratives.

This creates vertical integration, where all three levels are aligned, and it makes for an extraordinary persuasive package." For example, we have a broad cultural narrative about climate change as a process that consists of increasingly extreme, unusual, and erratic weather, and which is, crucially, caused by human actions.1

At a local level, our stories about very different weather events can be connected by this master narrative of climate change: one story of a beautiful, dry, spring day of warmth and sunshine and another of torrential downpours and flooding at the same time of year might share a tone of ominous foreboding, and disorientation caused by climate change awareness, and even guilt. The tone of such stories would be difficult to understand and much less powerful without the existence of the master narrative that informs it.

Humans tell stories to connect a series of facts and events (fictitious or not) in order, and through the use of narrative, convey a logic of causality, and beliefs about what matters, and why. As the adage "A picture is worth a thousand words" suggests, humans will look at a static image, cast back to imagine what happened before, and cast forward to imagine what might come next. In doing so, we attribute causality. We do this by drawing on familiar narratives, often ones that reinforce our own beliefes, values, and sense of identity.

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  Value = the enduring belief that a specific way of being is preferable, and which guide or motivate attitudes and actions
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  Belief = something we accept as true; a habit of confidence and conviction
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  Logics = the principles and particular reasons underpinning our judgements

When we tell stories that draw on a narrative, we feed that narrative keeping it alive and healthy.2

We have so much to learn from stories that have endured and evolved, even in the face of brutality and existential threat. This includes stories from Indigenous, racialized, disabled, queer, trans, and many other marginalized groups. These stories have endured depite master narratives about the deficits of marginalized people - narratives that worked to further marginalize. In her electric TED talk, author and activist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie speaks to the dangers of a single story.3 Our lives and our cultures are layers of overlapping stories. Rather than reduce people, places, and ideas to one storyline, Adichie urges us to honor plurality. When we can hold many stories at once, we strengthen our shared humanity.

In her work, Lee Anne Bell describes four types of stories:4

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  Stories are our DNA

  Like cells, stories encode our values, beliefs, and logics; they ensure the replication of culture in human systems.
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  Narratives are systems of stories

  Stories are understood and interpreted in the context of over-arching, "master narratives" that often shape the sense of causality and signficance of events in our anecdotes.
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  Stories can both underpin and threaten culture

  There are different types of stories: some of which uphold dominant groups' power, and others of which valorize the marginalized, and question the way things are

Experiences & Observations

Reflect on your own stock stories around philanthropy. How did the way in which you were first introduced to philanthropy shape your feelings or ideas? How is that similar or different to what drives your philanthropy today?

Reactions & Impressions

What are all the places in this module about story and narrative where you notice a voice of judgement, skepticism, concern, or worry show up? List them all. What do they have in common?

Questions & Hunches to test

What do you want to better understand about your own stock story of philanthropy?