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POLL RESULTS
What's stopping your storytelling
Last week's poll revealed something critical: many of you either have no social impact story collection system, or you rely on ad-hoc requests when you need something.
That's the problem last week’s newsletter tried to solve. If you implemented the strategies I shared, you will now have a capture system. And stories are documented as the transformation happens.
But here's what happens next - you realise you can't develop them all. And most organisations I speak to make the wrong choice about which stories to prioritise.
Today's edition fixes that.
In this edition
WEEKLY POLL
STORY DEVELOPMENT CAPACITY
How many full case studies do you normally develop per month?
THIS WEEK’S BIG IDEA
The Story Triage Problem
So your frontline team is now starting to capture stories. Good work!
But here's the problem - you can't develop them all.
Full story development takes time. An interview. Write-up. Consent process. Photography. Editing. Sign-off. You're looking at 2-4 hours - minimum - per story.
If your team captures 10 story leads in a month, and you can only develop 2, which ones do you choose?
If you’re choosing the wrong ones, it will cost you.
The problem most organisations get wrong
They develop stories based on convenience.
Who responded to the email first. Who's easiest to contact. Who's most enthusiastic about sharing. Who happens to be available when the photographer has time.
Or they develop stories based on emotion.
The most moving story. The one that made someone cry in the team meeting. The most dramatic transformation. The biggest turnaround.
Or they develop stories reactively.
Funding deadline approaching. Scramble for any case study. Grab whoever's willing. Rush the process. Hope it's good enough.
None of these approaches are strategic.
Convenience doesn't guarantee the story proves your End Vision. Emotion doesn't mean the story builds trust with your funders or project sponsors. Reactive scrambling produces mediocre work at best.
The result? Wasted resources on stories that don't move you or your organisation forward.
Why this matters now
I’m hearing that many of you are already stretched thin. 2026 is harder than 2025.
Government grants have declined by around £1 billion annually since 2020. Four million fewer people are giving regularly compared to 2019. Your team is smaller than it was two years ago.
You cannot afford to spend 4 hours developing a story that doesn't land with funders.
Every story you develop must count. That requires strategic prioritisation, not convenience.
When funders are making harder decisions, your stories need to be sharper. That means being ruthless about which captured stories become full case studies.
A better way to think about it
Story triage isn't about which stories are "best".
It's about which stories prove you're moving toward your End Vision and match what specific funders need to see right now.
The most moving story isn't always the most strategic story. The most dramatic transformation isn't always the right transformation to showcase.
What matters is this: Does this story show clear movement toward your End Vision? Does it fill a gap in your story bank? Can you actually complete it? Is the timing right?
Those four questions create a system. And systems beat good intentions every time.
The question that changes everything
Before you commit 4 hours to developing a story, answer this:
If I could only develop three stories this quarter, would this be one of them?
If the answer is no, archive it. It's not lost. It's just not a priority.
If the answer is yes, develop it immediately. Don't wait. Relationships fade. Details blur. People move on.
Strategic storytelling means knowing which stories to develop now, which to develop later, and which to leave as captured leads in case you need them.
THIS WEEK’S FRAMEWORK
The Story Triage Matrix
Evaluate every captured story across four dimensions. Score each dimension, then prioritise based on total score.
This takes 5 minutes per story. It saves you hours of wasted development time.
1. End Vision Alignment (Weight: 40%)
This is your most important criterion. Does this story show clear movement toward your End Vision (discussed in Edition 2 of this newsletter)?
Ask yourself:
Does this story demonstrate individual transformation?
Does it show system-level change?
Does it provide evidence your work creates the change you claim?
Is the transformation specific and observable, not vague?
Score 1-5:
5 = Directly proves our End Vision in action
4 = Strong connection to End Vision
3 = Some connection, but indirect
2 = Weak connection
1 = No clear link to End Vision
If a story scores 1 or 2 here, don't develop it. It doesn't matter how moving it is.
2. Timing & Urgency (Weight: 30%)
Some stories need to be captured now or they disappear forever.
Ask yourself:
Do you have a funding deadline in the next 4-8 weeks?
Is this story time-sensitive? (Person leaving the area, project ending, memory fading)
Will this story be stronger if captured now versus later?
Is the relationship already warm and established?
Score 1-5:
5 = Urgent deadline or time-sensitive opportunity
4 = Strong timing reasons to prioritise
3 = Moderate urgency
2 = Can wait a few weeks
1 = No time pressure
Stories with high End Vision scores and high Timing scores should jump to the front of the queue.
3. Story Completeness (Weight: 20%)
Can you actually finish this story? Or will it stall halfway through?
Ask yourself:
Has initial consent been given (or is there strong likelihood)?
Is the person willing and able to participate fully?
Can you access them for interview and photography?
Are they in a stable enough situation to share publicly?
Have you checked safeguarding and ethical considerations?
Score 1-5:
5 = Ready to develop, all elements in place
4 = Mostly ready, minor barriers
3 = Some uncertainty
2 = Significant barriers
1 = Multiple obstacles, unlikely to complete
Don't waste time on stories scoring 1 or 2 here. Move on.
4. Type Needed (Weight: 10%)
What's missing from your story bank?
Ask yourself:
Do you already have similar stories?
Does this fill a gap (geographic, demographic, type of change)?
Do you need individual, system, or evidence stories right now?
Does this story work in the format you need? (Written case study? Video? Photo story?)
Score 1-5:
5 = Fills critical gap, exactly what we need
4 = Useful addition, different angle
3 = Somewhat unique
2 = Similar to existing stories
1 = Duplicate of what we already have
This is your lowest-weighted criterion because it's about variety, not impact. But it matters.
If all your stories feature young people from London, and you capture a story about an older person in Manchester, that might score high here even if it's not your strongest story overall.
How the four dimensions work together (advanced scoring technique)
Total possible score: 20 points
Multiply each score by its weight:
End Vision Alignment score × 0.4
Timing & Urgency score × 0.3
Story Completeness score × 0.2
Type Needed score × 0.1
Example:
Story A: Young person who challenged discrimination at work
End Vision Alignment: 5 × 0.4 = 2.0
Timing & Urgency: 3 × 0.3 = 0.9
Story Completeness: 5 × 0.2 = 1.0
Type Needed: 4 × 0.1 = 0.4
Total: 4.3/5
Story B: Staff volunteer day with dramatic photos
End Vision Alignment: 2 × 0.4 = 0.8
Timing & Urgency: 4 × 0.3 = 1.2
Story Completeness: 5 × 0.2 = 1.0
Type Needed: 2 × 0.1 = 0.2
Total: 3.2/5
Story A scores higher because of End Vision Alignment. Develop that one.
Story B might have great photos and be easy to complete, but it doesn't prove transformation. Archive it.
When to develop each story
Score 4.0-5.0: Develop this week or next
Score 3.0-3.9: Develop this month if capacity allows
Score 2.0-2.9: Archive for now, revisit quarterly
Score below 2.0: Don't develop unless circumstances change dramatically
Be ruthless. Your time is your most valuable resource.
THIS WEEK’S TEMPLATE
Template: Weekly Story Review Checklist
Copy this into a spreadsheet or document. Review all captured stories weekly using this format.
Every Monday, spend 15-30 minutes scoring your captured stories from the previous week. Mark your top priorities. Develop 1-2 stories that week based on capacity.
STORY LEAD: [Name or anonymous identifier]
CAPTURED DATE: [When was this captured?]
CAPTURED BY: [Which team member flagged this?]
SOURCE: [Phone call? Session observation? Feedback form?]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
DIMENSION 1: END VISION ALIGNMENT (Weight: 40%)
□ Shows specific individual transformation
□ Shows system-level change
□ Provides evidence of impact
□ Directly connected to our End Vision
□ Transformation is observable and concrete
SCORE (1-5): ___ WEIGHTED SCORE: ___ × 0.4 = ___
NOTES:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
DIMENSION 2: TIMING & URGENCY (Weight: 30%)
□ Funding deadline approaching (within 4-8 weeks)
□ Time-sensitive (person leaving, project ending)
□ Relationship already warm and established
□ Story will be stronger if captured now vs later
□ Window of opportunity closing
SCORE (1-5): ___ WEIGHTED SCORE: ___ × 0.3 = ___
NOTES:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
DIMENSION 3: STORY COMPLETENESS (Weight: 20%)
□ Initial consent given (or strong likelihood of getting it)
□ Person willing and able to participate fully
□ Accessible for interview
□ Accessible for photography if needed
□ Safeguarding checked - safe to share publicly
□ No major ethical concerns
SCORE (1-5): ___ WEIGHTED SCORE: ___ × 0.2 = ___
NOTES:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
DIMENSION 4: TYPE NEEDED (Weight: 10%)
□ Fills gap in current story bank
□ Different demographic/geographic/programme area
□ Matches funder requirements
□ Works in format we need (written/video/photo)
□ Unique angle or perspective we don't already have
SCORE (1-5): ___ WEIGHTED SCORE: ___ × 0.1 = ___
NOTES:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
TOTAL SCORE: ___ / 5.0
PRIORITY RATING:
□ HIGH (4.0-5.0) - Develop this week or next
□ MEDIUM (3.0-3.9) - Develop this month if capacity allows
□ LOW (2.0-2.9) - Archive, revisit quarterly
□ DO NOT DEVELOP (below 2.0) - Unless circumstances change
DECISION:
□ DEVELOP THIS WEEK
□ DEVELOP THIS MONTH
□ ARCHIVE FOR LATER
□ DO NOT DEVELOP
NEXT STEPS:
□ Contact person to arrange interview
□ Check consent process
□ Assign to [team member name]
□ Schedule photography □ Add to content calendar
DEADLINE (if applicable):
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
How to use this template
Monday morning: Review all stories captured in the past week
Score each story across the four dimensions
Calculate weighted totals (or just rank them if maths isn't your thing)
Mark your top 1-2 priorities for development
Assign next steps for high-priority stories
Archive the rest - they're not lost, just not priority right now
Keep this as a running, shared document. Update it weekly. Review archived stories quarterly in case circumstances change.
THIS WEEK’S AI PROMPT
Prioritise Your Captured Stories
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:
Act as a top 1% social impact storyteller.
I work for [CHARITY / SOCIAL IMPACT TEAM]. Last week my frontline team captured [NUMBER] social impact story leads. I can only develop 1-2 stories this week. Help me prioritise strategically.
Refer to Matt Mahmood-Ogston's Social Impact Storytelling Framework for guidance, which I have attached.
Context:
Organisation: [Your organisation name and what you do]
End Vision: [Paste your End Vision statement from Edition 2]
Immediate need: [Do you have a funding bid coming up? Annual report? Campaign? Timeline?]
Current story bank: [What stories have you already developed? What types are you missing?]
Development capacity: [How many stories can you realistically develop per month?]
Captured stories to triage:
[Brief description of story lead 1 - who, what changed, why it matters]
[Brief description of story lead 2]
[Brief description of story lead 3]
[etc.]
Please help me:
Score each story across the 4 dimensions in the Story Triage Matrix (End Vision Alignment 40%, Timing 30%, Completeness 20%, Type Needed 10%)
Calculate weighted scores and rank the stories from highest to lowest priority
Recommend which 1-2 stories to develop this week and explain your reasoning clearly
Identify any risks or red flags I should consider before proceeding
Point out any gaps in my current story bank based on what I've captured
Suggest what types of stories my frontline team should prioritise capturing next to fill those gaps
If you need more information to assess these stories properly, ask me clarifying questions.
Be direct. Challenge me if I'm prioritising the wrong stories. I'd rather hear the truth now than waste 4 hours developing something that won't land with funders.
Use the output to guide your story development decisions this week. If the AI identifies red flags or ethical concerns, take them seriously.
🛠️ 3 Storytelling Tools I'm Using Right Now
Wispr Flow: Dictation that actually works. Speak your story ideas out loud, and it transcribes them with correct grammar, punctuation, and spelling. No editing a transcript afterwards. Just talk. It’s how dictation should be on every device.
Beehiiv: My favourite storytelling by email marketing tool - beats Mailchimp, Kit and Mailerlite hands down. I'm using it to send you this newsletter. Use this link to receive a 14-day trial + 20% OFF for 3 months.
Otter.ai: AI meeting notes and transcription. With consent, I use this to record stakeholder interviews and beneficiary conversations about the change they've experienced. The transcripts become goldmines for authentic story material and evidence of your End Vision in practice.
I genuinely use the services I promote. I may earn a small commission if you sign up using one of these links.
Bonus: Spotify Playlist - Deep Work Music for Changemakers
New tracks added weekly - I've carefully curated over 10 hours of binaural beats and (mostly) vocal-free music for focused work on Spotify. I listen to this playlist most days - headphones on, distractions out. It's helped me write more, think clearly, and stay in flow longer.
Subscribe to playlist
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.
Work with me
If you need help turning your impact into stories that unlock funding and prove outcomes, let's talk. Book a free 15-minute call
