You’re in great company. You’re joining {{active_subscriber_count}} charity leaders and social impact professionals learning to tell stories that unlock funding and drive change.

Back in Edition 1, your biggest storytelling barriers were clear: time, starting point, and budget.

Today's edition tackles the time problem directly. Because you don't need more hours - you need a system that captures stories in two minutes, right when transformation happens. If your frontline team can spare two minutes, you'll never run out of stories again.

Most organisations approach storytelling backwards.

They wait until they need a story - for a funding bid, annual report, or campaign - then scramble to find someone willing to talk. By then, the moment has passed. The transformation is old news. The details are fuzzy. The person has moved on.

Strategic storytelling requires a capture system that runs continuously in the background, led by the people who see change happening in real time: your frontline team.

They treat story collection as a communications team responsibility.

Once a quarter, someone from marketing emails the team asking "does anyone have a good case study?"

Frontline workers are too busy dealing with actual crises. The people who would make the best subjects have moved on to other services or can't be contacted anymore. The stories that do get captured are whatever's convenient, not what's strategic.

Meanwhile, dozens of powerful stories slip through the cracks every month because no one was there to document them when they happened.

Even worse, when organisations do collect stories, they often focus on the wrong things. I see this constantly: staff volunteer days, team fundraising events, awareness activities. These are nice. They show your team cares. But they don't show beneficiary transformation.

Funders don't fund staff volunteer days. They fund change in the lives of the people you exist to serve.

You already know your Emotional Destination from Edition 1 of this newsletter. You've defined your End Vision from Edition 2.

But without a system to capture stories showing that change as it happens, your storytelling will always feel reactive and scrambled. You'll always be three steps behind, trying to remember who did what six months ago.

The organisations that survive 2026 won't be the ones with bigger budgets for professional photography. They'll be the ones whose frontline teams capture transformation as it happens - with a phone, a voice note, or three sentences in a shared document.

Story capture isn't just a communications function. It's a frontline responsibility too.

Your youth workers, case managers, programme leads, and support staff are already there when change happens. They see the moment someone gains confidence to challenge discrimination. They hear the conversation that shifts everything. They notice the small victory that signals bigger transformation.

If you give them a simple system to capture those moments, you'll never run out of stories.

More importantly, you'll have the right stories - the ones that show movement toward your End Vision, not just descriptions of busyness.

Before you plan your next impact report or funding application, answer this:

Do your frontline staff know what transformation looks like, and do they have a two-minute way to capture it when they see it?

If the answer is no, you're losing your best stories every single week.

Set up a secure, shared space where frontline staff can drop story leads in real time.

This could be:

Not polished case studies. Just three sentences: who, what changed, and why it matters.

That's it. That's your starting point.

Your story capture system should work in four stages. Each stage has a different owner, different timeframe, and different level of detail.

Owner: Frontline team (anyone working directly with beneficiaries)
When: Daily or weekly, as transformation happens
Time required: 2 minutes

What they record:

Format: Voice note, photo, or three written sentences

Storage: Shared and secure document or folder accessible to communications team

Critical point: At this stage, you're just capturing leads. Not full stories. Not polished testimonials. Just enough information so the story doesn't disappear.

Owner: Communications or impact team
When: Weekly review
Time required: 15-30 minutes

What they do:

Review all captured stories from the past week and mark priority based on:

✓ Connection to End Vision
✓ Shows transformation, not just activity
✓ Timing (urgent for funding deadline?)
✓ Type needed (Individual/System/Evidence - see Newsletter Edition 2)

Outcome: A prioritised list of which stories to develop next

Critical point: Not every captured story becomes a full case study. This stage filters for strategic value.

Owner: Writer, photographer, or storyteller
When: Monthly or as needed for specific campaigns
Time required: 2-4 hours per story

What they do:

Outcome: Publication-ready story with all ethical safeguards in place

Critical point on consent: You cannot publish any story without clear, informed consent. This means the person understands how their story will be used, where it will appear, and that they can withdraw consent later if needed. If you're unsure about consent processes, reply to this email and let me know - I'll create dedicated content on ethical storytelling and consent if there's demand.

Owner: Marketing and fundraising team
When: Ongoing
Time required: Varies

What they do:

Outcome: Stories that drive funding, build trust, and inspire action

Critical point: One well-developed story can be used in 10 different ways. Don't create a new story for every single need.

Without Stage 1 (Capture), you have nothing to work with.

Without Stage 2 (Triage), you waste time developing the wrong stories.

Without Stage 3 (Develop), you have leads but no publishable stories.

Without Stage 4 (Deploy), developed stories sit unused in folders.

All four stages must work together. The system breaks down if any stage is missing.

Copy and adapt this email to send to your frontline staff:

Copy the prompt below, edit the placeholders, and paste into Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini.

Note: To get the best results, first download my Social Impact Storytelling Framework, then upload the file along with the following prompt.

AI PROMPT:

Use the output to set up your capture system this week.

I mentioned consent briefly in the framework section, but it deserves more attention.

You cannot publish someone's story - in any format, on any channel - without their clear, informed consent.

Informed consent means:

This is especially critical when working with vulnerable people, young people, or anyone from marginalised communities.

Getting consent wrong doesn't just harm the person whose story you've shared. It damages trust in your organisation and can have legal consequences.

If you'd like me to create dedicated content about consent, ethical storytelling practices, and how to photograph or document people's stories safely and respectfully, reply to this email and let me know.

If there's enough demand, I'll create a comprehensive edition on this topic. It matters too much to rush.

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

Until next week, sending you safe and peaceful energy

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