"Thank you for having us. We were founded in 2009 and work across three boroughs. Last year our 86 volunteers made over 6,000 befriending calls to 140 older people, an increase of 18% on the year before. 92% of the people we support tell us they feel less lonely. With your support, we could reach even more older people who need us."

On paper, it's fine. Out loud, it's gone before the next charity sits down.

A reader can go back over a sentence. A listener can't.

That paragraph gives the panel five numbers in about 30 seconds. Nobody in the room will remember one of them. There's no person in it, so there's nothing to picture. And it ends on what the charity wants, which is the moment people stop listening.

There's another problem. This committee isn't a grants panel. They're colleagues who will go back to their desks and be asked, "Which one did you like?" If you make the final two, they'll have to explain their choice to the rest of the company before the staff vote. Whatever they can repeat in those conversations is what wins.

Your main job is to decide on the emotional destination: the feeling you want the room to have while you speak and when you sit down. Once you're clear on that feeling, you can decide what you want them to do next.

Then use this test. What will they repeat in the corridor afterwards?

Usually it's one of three things: a person, a number, or how you ended. So build your five minutes around exactly those, in an order a listener can follow.

Here's the same five minutes, spoken. It's still a composite, and the numbers are illustrative. These are the opening and closing lines, written to be said out loud.

Look at what's different.

The opening is shorter than the version they'd have read out, and every sentence fits in one breath.

Robert is in the first sentence, and he has a name. That's what lets the room follow one person from your first line to your last. He's the one who does the brave thing: he asks. The volunteer walks with him, and that's all.

If you're talking about a real person, use a name only with their permission. Otherwise, change it and say so: "I'll call him Robert."

There's one number that shows change, with what it's out of. The 6,000 calls haven't gone. They can come out in questions, as context.

The limit is two short sentences. And the last line is about Robert, not the money. That's the line the panel will take back to their desks.

If you run a CSR or social impact programme, you can get better pitches simply by changing the question. Instead of "Tell us about your organisation", try: "Tell us about one person, and what changed for them." You'll hear the difference in the first minute.

And when you take a partnership back to your own board or leadership team, the same running order works for you. Your board has five minutes too, and they also need something to repeat.

Some people dread standing up in a room, however good the script. That's a real fear, and a script on its own won't fix it. What helps most is saying it out loud, several times, to someone who'll tell you honestly which line they remember. I wrote about what happens when you speak without an emotional destination in You told them everything. They remember nothing.

Over the past few weeks I've mentioned a four-week course I planned to run in November, called the Impact Storytelling Cohort.

I've decided to pause it until the new year.

After hearing your feedback and listening to what you really want, I learned that a four-week course was the wrong shape, especially at this time of year. Fixed weekly sessions are hard to fit around a charity or social impact job. And when the four weeks end, the support ends too.

What you asked for was somewhere to keep coming back to. A place to try a story out, get honest feedback, gain confidence, and learn from people doing the same work as you.

So that's what I'm putting my energy into: the Impact Storytelling Collective. It's a home for charity and social impact leaders, and for anyone who wants to use storytelling to change things for the better. There'll be regular live workshops, co-working sessions where you can work on your story alongside others, and a place to share what you're working on and get honest feedback from people doing the same work.

It opens on Monday 9 November to a small group of 10 to 15 founding members. They join free, and in return they'll be invited to help me shape it: coming to a free workshop, trying things out and telling me honestly what works and what doesn't. Once it's ready, it opens to everyone.

Join the list and I'll let you know when the doors open.

Would you like to be a founding member? Reply to this email and tell me a little about your work. Founding places are by invitation, and I'll be in touch.

If you'd already signed up for the cohort, thank you. I've written to you separately.

This prompt checks a spoken script you've already written, as if it's hearing it rather than reading it. It flags sentences that are too long to say, numbers bunched too close together, how long it takes for a real person to appear, whether you reach the feeling you're aiming for, and whether you end on the change or the money. It estimates how long the script will take to say and lists the questions you're most likely to get. It won't rewrite the script for you, and it won't invent anything.

Before you paste: swap real names for made-up ones, and take out anything else that could identify the people you support.

Copy and paste it into Claude or Gemini.

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This is the second of four case files. One click tells me whether it's more useful than what I usually send, and there's space to add a line on why.

Got five minutes coming up and no idea how to fill them? Or a grant renewal, a board report, a number nobody seems to notice?

Reply to this email, or message me on LinkedIn, and describe it in a few lines. I'll pick some to work through as case files in future editions.

If I use yours, I'll take out anything that could identify you, your organisation or the people you work with, and I'll show you the case before it goes out.

A written application is read. Five minutes in a room is heard. They need different stories.

Start with a moment. Use one number. Say the limit. End on the person.

Then ask yourself what they'll repeat in the corridor.