Hello {{first_name}}. Just over a week ago, quietly and without announcement, thousands of rainbow logos changed back. June is over, and with it the month a lot of brands treat as the whole of their commitment.

This edition, for the 3,428 of us here, is written more for the corporate storyteller than the charity one, and it is about what your storytelling says in July, once the logo has gone back to normal.

Last week I asked what happens after you publish a story that someone trusted you with. The answers split three ways, almost evenly.

About a third of you check in with the person every time. Another third do it sometimes. The last third said that once the story is out, the contact usually ends.

There is no perfect number here. But there is a simple lesson: checking in after you publish should be a fixed step in your process, not something you get to only if you remember.

So here is your action this week. Add one line to how you gather and share stories: "Who follows up with this person after we publish, and when?" Answer it before the story goes out, not after.

It is the same idea behind this week's edition: the work does not end the moment the content goes out.

For four weeks every June, the logos bloom. Rainbow on the profile picture. Rainbow on the coffee cup. Rainbow on the side of the delivery van.

Then July arrives, and one by one, they change back.

You watched it happen. So did everyone the brand was trying to reach. And that is the problem. The gesture is now so familiar it reads as the opposite of what it intends. People do not see a stand. They see a season.

And this is not really about Pride. It is a pattern you can watch all year.

The same thing happens on International Women's Day. On Disability Awareness Week. On World Mental Health Day. The logo changes, the post goes up, the hashtag trends for an afternoon, and then everyone moves on until the date comes round again next year.

A symbol only earns belief when there is year-round work behind it. Raise the rainbow in June, or the banner on 8 March, having done nothing for that community in the other eleven months, and people do not read it as support. They read it as decoration.

So the question was never whether to use the rainbow. Use it. The question is whether you have earned the right to. And you earn that right in the months when nobody is watching.

I write this from a particular seat. On Saturday, 80 of us from the Naz and Matt Foundation marched at Pride in London.

Many of the people beside me had survived religious and cultural homophobia, honour-based abuse, or conversion practices. For some, being seen in public still carries a real risk.

Getting those 80 people to the starting line took months of quiet conversations and careful safety planning. So I watch corporate Pride closely. I know what genuine support costs. And I know a rainbow costs nothing.

There is a reason the symbol on its own falls flat. The people you are trying to reach are more sceptical than you might expect, not less.

Years of logos that appear on the day and vanish by the next have taught them to expect the gesture, and the silence that follows it. So when you lead with the symbol, the way every marketing instinct tells you to, you hit a door that is already closed.

What opens it is not a better logo. It is evidence: a specific, slightly costly commitment to that community, made in the quiet months, that a brand only posing would never bother with.

Do that, and something shifts. You have earned the right to be believed. Only now does a human story land.

And the most powerful story is usually already inside your building. For example, the parent in your own staff network who has an LGBTQ+ child and travelled the hard road from fear to acceptance. Or the colleague who came back to work after a mental health crisis and was met with more than a policy. Their stories move people in a way no stock photograph ever will.

One caution, and it matters more this year than most. If your story is about a vulnerable community, think about telling it anonymously.

The rise in harmful conservative politics, and the everyday hostility that travels with it, means visibility now carries a cost some of your people cannot safely pay. An anonymous story, told with care and full consent, is not a lesser story. It protects the person and still reaches the reader.

Then, and only then, ask for something. Not applause. A change. Because a month is not a commitment. A calendar is.

So here is what a calendar actually looks like, past the framework and the good intentions.

Pick one community your organisation genuinely touches. Not five. One.

Back a smaller organisation already doing the work, with money, with time, or with your platform, rather than inventing your own campaign to sit beside theirs.

And make a point of choosing a small one. Too often, corporate support flows only to the biggest names in a community, the charities with the recognisable brand and the polished pitch. That starves the smaller organisations of oxygen, of funding, of resources, the very organisations doing the frontline work the large charities cannot reach. So when you next choose who to back, choose small.

Do one visible thing for that community in a month when nobody expects it, and make it something a posing brand never would.

Then tell that story, with the people in it kept safe.

Do that, and you stop being a brand that shows up every June. You become one a community can actually count on. That is the whole difference between a rainbow and a relationship.

The rainbow was never the problem. The calendar was.

A short sequence for any social impact campaign a company puts its name to. Work it in order. A campaign that skips a door underperforms no matter how good the other two are.

Door 1 - Open the mind. Before any feeling, earn the right to be believed. Ask: what does a sceptical audience currently assume about us on this issue, and what specific, verifiable commitment would make them reconsider? If your answer is a rainbow, a slogan, or a one-off post, the door stays shut. The opener is a fact a gesture-only brand would never commit to.

Door 2 - Reach the heart. Now the human story can land. Ask: whose real, specific story does the reader meet? Find it inside your own walls where you can. And decide the safety question up front: does telling this expose the person to risk, and would anonymity protect them without weakening the story? This year, assume the answer leans towards anonymity.

Door 3 - Ask for the change. Feeling with nowhere to go evaporates. Ask: what specific thing can the reader or the company do, and does it extend past this month? "Care about this" is not a change. "Here is what we are doing in September, and here is how you join" is.

The failure to watch for is the common one: a beautiful, heartfelt campaign that opens no minds and asks for nothing, so it moves the people who already agreed and no one else.

Complete this before your organisation puts its name to any community campaign.

If you enjoyed reading this newsletter and found it useful, please forward this email on to a colleague and ask them to subscribe here: www.impactstoryteller.org

Until next week, sending you safe and peaceful energy.

Warm regards,

Matt Mahmood-Ogston
Award-winning impact storyteller, photographer and charity CEO.
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