Who Is Telling Your Story?
It’s hard to nail the voice of your customer. When you do, trust emerges. Trust creates openness and openness is a contagion for action. On-the-ground participation is good for storytelling.
Every story has a voice. Every voice carries a worldview. Every worldview shapes what's possible. This is why who tells the story matters as much as what the story says.
In traditional communications, voice is often treated as a stylistic choice: formal or casual, friendly or authoritative. But in impact storytelling, voice is about truth.
Authentic Voice vs. Brand Voice
Brand voice is crafted and consistent. Authentic voice is evolving. Impact stories require authentic voice, the kind that comes from genuine experience and real stake in the outcomes. This doesn't mean abandoning strategy or professional standards. It means ensuring that the voice carrying your story has actual connection to the community and issue it represents.
The Authority Question
Who has the authority to tell this story? The answer depends on relationships, not just expertise. The most credible storytellers are often those who've built trust over time, not those with the most impressive credentials. Sometimes this means stepping back and amplifying community voices rather than speaking for them. Sometimes it means sharing the storytelling platform with those most affected by the issues.
Cultural Competence in Storytelling
Every story exists within cultural contexts that shape how it's received and understood. Cultural competence means understanding these contexts well enough to communicate respectfully and effectively. This includes understanding communication preferences, cultural values, historical context, and power dynamics within the communities you're trying to reach.
Framing as Power
How you frame a story determines what solutions seem possible and who seems responsible for creating them. Frames aren't neutral, they carry implicit assumptions about cause, responsibility, and possibility. For example, framing poverty as an individual problem suggests individual solutions. Framing it as a systemic issue suggests systemic solutions. Neither frame is objectively correct, but each carries different implications for action.
The Representation Challenge
Impact stories often aim to represent communities to broader audiences. This creates both opportunity and responsibility. The opportunity is to counter stereotypes and build understanding. The responsibility is to avoid exploitation and oversimplification. The key is involving community members not just as sources or subjects, but as collaborators in determining how they want to be represented.
Code-Switching and Authenticity
Many communities use different communication styles in different contexts, what linguists call code-switching. Impact storytellers need to understand and respect these differences rather than demanding artificial consistency. This might mean adapting story elements for different audiences while maintaining core authenticity, or it might mean educating broader audiences about communication differences.
Building Multi-Voice Narratives
The most powerful impact stories often include multiple voices offering different perspectives on the same issue or opportunity. This creates richer, more nuanced narratives that avoid the limitations of single viewpoints. But orchestrating multi-voice narratives requires skill in facilitation and careful attention to power dynamics to ensure all voices are truly heard.
Try This | Voice Analysis.
For your current storytelling project, ask:
Whose voices are currently centered in the story?
Whose voices are missing?
What authority and relationship do your storytellers have with the community?
How does cultural framing affect what solutions seem possible?
What would change if different voices led the narrative?
Remember this.
When you're intentional about voice, framing, and culture, your stories become vehicles for impact, not just communication.
Contact MessageMakers to learn more.