Telling your NGO’s story

Telling your NGO’s story means showing, through real people and moments, what your work changes and why it matters, in a way that is true, fair to the people in it and easy to read. Good stories help funders, volunteers and the public understand your work far better than a list of activities. Careless ones can harm the people you serve and your credibility.

This guide is for NGO founders, programme staff and anyone who writes or posts for an NGO. It covers why stories matter, finding them, shaping them, writing for the web and social media, consent and dignity, using numbers, and getting your stories out.

Why stories matter

People remember stories long after they forget figures. A story about one woman who got her pension restored makes a report on 140 restored pensions real.

Funders need stories too. CSR teams use them in their own annual reports, websites and sustainability reports, so they want stories they can trust and reuse, with consent. Donors and volunteers decide with both head and heart. And collecting stories, including ones about what didn’t work, helps your own team learn.

Stories don’t replace evidence. A strong story sits beside data that shows the change is real and how widespread it is. See reporting to funders.

Finding stories

The best stories come from the people closest to the work. Make finding them a habit:

• Ask field staff one question every week: what changed, and who surprised you?
• Keep a story log: the date, the people, what happened, the source of any numbers, the photos and the consent status.
• Look beyond success: a community’s hard decision, a volunteer’s first day, a problem solved, a project that failed and what you changed.
• Let people speak for themselves. Their own words, translated faithfully, are more powerful than your summary.

Explain why you’re asking, and make it clear that saying no won’t affect anyone’s services. Nobody should feel they must tell their story to keep getting help.

Interviewing well

• Let the person choose the time and place, and whether a staff member sits in.
• Ask open questions: “What was life like before?”, “What changed?”, “What would you change about the programme?”
• Listen more than you talk, and don’t put words in people’s mouths.
• Record only with permission, and note who interpreted if you used an interpreter.
• Read the story back to the person, or to a parent for a child, before it’s published, and change anything they’re unhappy with.
• Promise nothing in return for a story.

Shaping a story

Most strong NGO stories follow the same simple shape:

1. A person and a moment: start with someone, not with your organisation.
2. The problem, in concrete terms: what it meant in their day.
3. What they did, with your support. People are the actors in their own lives; your NGO is the help, not the hero.
4. What changed, ideally with one number.
5. What it means more widely: the scale, in one or two figures.
6. What the reader can do: read more, volunteer, give, share.

The strong version names a real-sized problem, shows who acted, and gives a number someone could check.

Writing for the web and social media

• Write a plain, specific headline that says what happened: “Women’s group helps 140 older people restore pensions” beats “Empowering lives”.
• Put the point in the first two lines. Many readers go no further.
• Use short paragraphs and plain words. Replace jargon: “people who took part” for “beneficiaries”, “work” for “interventions”.
• Keep it as long as the story needs. A few hundred words is often enough for the web; a social post needs one idea, one image and a caption that makes sense on its own.
• Make it accessible. Add a short description (alt text) to every image and subtitles to every video.
• Be careful with tags and locations. Don’t tag people without their agreement, and never add a location to a photo of a child.

Consent, dignity and children

Informed consent means the person understands what you’ll share, where (your website, social media, a funder’s report), for how long, and that they can change their mind. Ask in their language, record their consent in writing or on audio, and keep the record with the story. If a funder may reuse the story, the consent must cover that.

For a child, a parent or guardian gives consent, and the child should agree too. Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, processing a child’s personal data needs verifiable consent from a parent or guardian; the Act’s main duties for organisations apply from 13 May 2027.

Beyond what the law requires:

• Show dignity, not pity. No images of people in distress to raise money, no “before” photos designed to shock.
• Never stage a photograph, and never ask children to perform for visitors or cameras.
• Protect survivors. Never identify a survivor of violence or trafficking, and ask whether their story should be told at all.
• Blur children’s faces by default when in doubt.
• Remove location data from image files before you publish them.
• Never use an AI-generated image as if it showed your work or real people. If you use an illustration, label it.

Our guide to consent, photos and dignity covers this in depth.

Numbers that mean something

One or two well-chosen numbers make a story credible. A page of them makes it unreadable.

Three rules: give the source and date of every figure; show the count behind every percentage; and use the same numbers you give funders, because they compare.

Getting your story out

Use each story more than once: a web article, a social post, a box in your annual report, a slide for a funder’s visit. Share it with your funders, with consent for their use, and agree how they will credit you. See telling the story of your CSR for the company’s side.

Local newspapers and radio often welcome a well-told local story, especially with a person willing to speak. You can also share your NGO’s story with SocioStory: our editors read and edit every story before it’s published, and we never publish paid stories.

Common mistakes

• Making your organisation the hero instead of the people who did the work.
• Using photos of people in distress to raise money.
• Publishing anything that could identify a child victim or a child in care.
• Numbers with no source, or claims of change you didn’t measure.
• Consent asked for once, in English, for “any use”.
• Staged photos, or AI images passed off as real.