Hello! You’re now part of a community of 2,542 charity leaders, fundraisers, and social impact professionals who are learning to craft stories that secure funding and foster positive change in their communities.

Last week’s poll asked this very question. Just over two-thirds of you said you started with the context or problem, and the remaining respondents said their stories started with the person before the change.

What this tells us: Nobody is leading with transformation. Edition 8 named that problem. This week we go one step further - because even when you have a strong transformation story, most organisations make a second mistake. They tell the same version of it to everyone. A funder, a donor, and a member of the public are not asking the same question when they encounter your work.

They need different entry points to the same story.

On Saturday evening I photographed a public celebration in London. I took 141 photographs. I shared only six of them.

That decision was not accidental. It was not timidity. It was the result of a decade working at the intersection of documentary photography and social impact storytelling - two disciplines that pull in opposite directions, and which every charity communications team has to hold in tension every single day.

The documentary photographer in me, shaped by my time at Magnum Photos, wanted to share everything. Raw emotion. Unfiltered moments. The full truth of what I witnessed.

The charity CEO in me knew that was not possible. Not because the images were not powerful. Because power and safety are not the same thing.

I made deliberate editorial decisions. I did not share faces in focus without permission. I did not share intimate family moments, even though they were among the most compelling frames. I did not share photos of minors. I did not share identifiable details - addresses, registration plates - that could be used to locate individuals. I did not share wide shots showing crowd scale, because numbers can be weaponised. I stood visibly, made eye contact, signalled clearly that people could ask me to stop.

Most of my work over the last decade has been photographing people who cannot show their faces. Survivors. Asylum seekers. People at risk of harm. Street photography feels like a different language now.

But here is what I want to focus on this week, because it connects directly to what you face every day.

The question of which six photographs to share is the same question as: who is my audience, and what do they need from this story?

That question does not have one answer. It has at least three.

Why the same story needs different versions

Think about the transformation your organisation creates. You have one real story of change at the centre of your work right now. One person, one community, one moment where something shifted.

Most organisations tell that story once, in one format, to everyone. A funding application gets one version. It goes on the website. The social media team reposts it. The CEO references it in a speech. Essentially the same story, slightly reformatted.

This is a missed opportunity at best. At worst, it actively undermines your credibility. Because a funder, a donor, and a member of the public are not asking the same question when they read your work.

A funder is asking: can this organisation create this change reliably, at scale, within budget, and can I trust them to report honestly?

A donor is asking: does this work matter, does it align with my values, and will my contribution make a real difference?

A member of the public is asking: is this organisation safe to engage with, do they understand people like me, and would I trust them with something important?

Three entirely different questions. Three different entry points to the same story.

The Three Lenses

Over the years I have developed a way of thinking about this that sits at the centre of how I approach every piece of impact communication. I call it the Three Lenses.

The funder lens asks: what is the evidence of impact, what is the systemic change you are contributing to, and what would not exist without you?

The donor lens asks: who is the human at the centre of this story, why does their experience matter, and how does my support connect to their transformation?

The public lens asks: what is this organisation for, what values do they hold, and what would be lost if they ceased to exist?

The story material is the same. The emphasis, the structure, and the stakes shift entirely depending on which lens you are writing through.

This is not manipulation. It is precision. It is the difference between a story that lands and one that gets politely acknowledged and then forgotten.

What this looks like in practice

Take a single real transformation story from your organisation.

Through the funder lens, that story opens with the specific change that occurred, connects it to your theory of change, cites the pattern you see across your beneficiaries, and demonstrates what your methodology makes possible that could not happen otherwise.

Through the donor lens, the same story opens with the person - their situation, their dignity, their own account of what shifted - and makes the connection between the donor's support and that specific human outcome as direct and real as possible.

Through the public lens, the story opens with a tension or question the audience can feel themselves, something that makes them think that could be someone I know, before revealing that your organisation exists, what it does, and why it matters.

Same source material. Three completely different stories. Each one true. Each one appropriate for its audience.

The editorial decision is the storytelling decision

When I decided which six photographs to share from Saturday, I was running the same process. Who will see this? What do they need from this image? What is the risk to the people in it? What story does this tell, and is that a story I have the right to tell about these people?

Every social impact organisation, every charity, faces this editorial process constantly. You are making decisions about what to show, what to protect, who gets to see which version of the story, and whose dignity is preserved throughout.

The organisations that do this well are not being dishonest. They are being careful. They understand that the same truth can be framed in ways that harm people and in ways that protect them, and that the difference is not always obvious until you stop to think.

Does the version I am about to produce actually answer the question my audience is asking?

If not, you have not finished yet.

The Funder Lens Primary question: Can I trust this organisation to create change reliably? Story structure: Transformation first, then methodology, then systemic context, then what becomes possible with support. Tone: Credible, specific, evidence-grounded, honest about challenges and limits.

The Donor Lens Primary question: Does this matter, and does my contribution connect to something real? Story structure: The person and their transformation, then the meaning, then the connection to continued support. Tone: Human, warm, specific. Never sentimental. Never exploitative.

The Public Lens Primary question: Should I trust this organisation, and does their work matter to my world? Story structure: A tension or question the audience recognises, then your answer, then your invitation. Tone: Accessible, grounded. No jargon. No assumed prior knowledge.

The test: For any story you are about to publish, ask which lens you are using. Is the structure, emphasis, and tone aligned with the question that audience is actually asking? If not, stop and rewrite.

Complete this before producing any multi-audience impact communication.

Copy and paste this prompt into ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. Then replace the [placeholders] with your own information.

Include only what you have consent to share. If in doubt, describe the situation in general terms rather than specific ones.

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

AI PROMPT:

Not satisfied with your first result? Keep working through until you start to feel an emotional connection to the words in front of you.

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Until next week, sending you safe and peaceful energy

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