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LAST WEEK’S POLL RESULTS
"How does your organisation currently present impact data?"
In last week’s newsletter, I asked about your impact data and how you show it. You responded:
Numbers in one section, stories in another: 33%
We combine data and stories but it feels clunky: 33%
We lead with stories and add data as supporting evidence: 33%
We lead with data and rarely include personal stories: 0%
We mostly rely on case studies, not data: 0%
Something else: 0%
What this tells us: A perfect three-way split. One-third of you keep data and narrative in separate sections. One-third are combining them but it feels clunky. And one-third lead with stories and bolt data on afterwards. Nobody leads with data alone. The instinct is right.
The execution is where most organisations get stuck. If you missed last week's One Number Method for fixing this, it is still available in Edition 12 (Your impact report is full of numbers nobody feels. Here's how to fix that).
In this edition
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WEEKLY POLL
When a major public moment connects to your work, what do you typically do?
Poll results will be shared in next week's edition.
THIS WEEK’S BIG IDEA
500,000 people marched. Most charities shared a link.
Last Saturday, half a million people marched through central London in the Together Alliance march. The largest anti-far-right demonstration in British history. Over 500 organisations mobilised. Trade unions, charities, faith groups, antiracism campaigners, disability rights groups.
If your organisation works with refugees, asylum seekers, hate crime survivors, marginalised communities, or anyone affected by the rise of far-right hostility in this country, that march was your moment too.
And most organisations missed it.
They shared the BBC article. They reposted someone else's photograph. Some posted a solidarity statement. Then they went back to their content calendar on Monday.
I know because I did something similar. I posted a photo essay from the march on LinkedIn soon after. 580 impressions. Barely a ripple. Not because the photographs were weak or the topic did not matter. But because I showed what happened at the march without connecting it to what my audience needs from me.
That is the mistake. And almost every charity and social impact organisation makes it when a big public moment lands.
Why this keeps happening
There is no shortage of moments like this. A policy announcement. A viral news story. A protest. A public inquiry finding. A celebrity speaking out. A campaign that suddenly takes off. These moments create temporary windows where the public is paying attention to an issue your organisation works on every single day.
The problem is that most organisations have no system for connecting what just happened in the world to what they do every day.
They have a content calendar. They have scheduled posts. They have an annual report. But they do not have a process for when the news hands them a moment they did not plan for.
So they default to one of three things. They share someone else's content and add a caption. They post a statement of solidarity that sounds like every other statement. Or they stay silent because they are not sure it is their place to say anything.
All three waste the opportunity.
What responsive storytelling actually looks like
The organisations that use public moments well do something different. They do not report on the moment. They connect it to their reality.
There is a difference between saying "we support the Together Alliance march" and saying "500,000 people marched against the far right on Saturday. Here is what that movement looks like in the community we serve on a Tuesday afternoon."
The first is solidarity. The second is a story.
The first tells people where you stand. The second tells people what you see.
And the second is what builds trust, because it shows that the work your organisation does is not theoretical. It is happening, right now, in a specific place, with specific people, regardless of whether the cameras are there.
The connection your audience actually needs
Your readers, your funders, your supporters - they saw the headlines about the march. They felt something. Maybe hope. Maybe frustration. Maybe helplessness. And right now, they are looking for someone to tell them what this means at ground level.
That is your job. Not to comment on the news. But to be the bridge between a moment the whole country noticed and the work that happens quietly, every day, in your community.
The march will fade from the headlines by Friday. Your work will not. That is the story.
Framework: The Moment Connection Method
When a public moment connects to your organisation's work, use these three steps to turn it into content that builds trust rather than just performing solidarity.
Step 1: The connection
Ask: what does this public moment have to do with the reality we see every day?
Not "we support this cause." That is a position statement, not a story.
Instead, find the overlap between what just happened in public and what your team witnesses in private. The march was about standing against hate. If your organisation works with hate crime survivors, the connection is not the march itself. It is what happens when the marchers go home. It is the Tuesday morning phone call from someone who has just been targeted. It is the waiting list that was already too long before the headlines.
Step 2: The bridge
Write one sentence that connects the public moment to your specific, daily reality.
Format: "[Big moment] happened on Saturday. Here is what that looks like in [your context] on a [normal day]."
Example: "500,000 people marched against the far right on Saturday. On Monday morning, our helpline took 14 calls from people who had been targeted over the weekend."
The bridge sentence does not need to be dramatic. It needs to be true. One specific detail from your work is worth more than any commentary on the news.
Step 3: The return
Bring the reader from the big moment back to the work that continues after the cameras leave.
This is the step most organisations skip. They connect to the moment but leave the audience there. The audience needs to understand that your work is not a reaction to a headline. It is the infrastructure that was already in place before anyone marched.
End with: what happens next in your community. What your team will be doing this week. What has not changed, regardless of whether the news cycle has moved on.
Template: The reactive content brief
Complete this within 24 hours of a public moment that connects to your work.
The moment: [What happened? One sentence. Include date and scale.]
Our connection: [What does this moment have to do with the work we do every day? Not a position statement. A reality statement.]
The bridge sentence: [Write one sentence: "(Public moment) happened. Here is what that looks like in (our context) on a (normal day)."]
One specific detail: [Name one concrete, truthful thing from your recent work that makes the connection visible. A number, a phone call, a conversation, a waiting list, a person's experience.]
The return: [What is your team doing this week that is connected to this moment but will continue long after the headlines move on?]
Format: [Where will this go? LinkedIn post / email to supporters / board update / grant narrative / social media]
Publish by: [Date and time. If it is more than 48 hours after the moment, reconsider whether it is still timely.]
AI Prompt: The moment connector
How to use this AI prompt:
Copy and paste the text below into your preferred AI tool (I recommend either Claude or Google Gemini)
Replace the text in [placeholders] with your content
Download my free Social Impact Storytelling Framework ( ogston.com/framework), then upload it alongside this prompt. It will give the AI the context it needs to give you a genuinely useful response.
AI PROMPT (copy in full):
You are a social impact storytelling adviser helping a UK charity connect a public moment to their daily work.
Style rules (apply to all outputs):
- UK British English
- No emojis, no em dashes, no hashtags
- LinkedIn hooks must be under 10 words. One short sentence. No commas, no clauses. The hook must create curiosity or tension that earns the click on "see more."
Here is the public moment:
[PASTE A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE NEWS EVENT, PROTEST, POLICY ANNOUNCEMENT, OR PUBLIC MOMENT]
Here is our organisation's mission:
[PASTE YOUR ORGANISATION'S MISSION STATEMENT OR A 2-3 SENTENCE DESCRIPTION OF WHAT YOU DO]
Here is one specific thing from our recent work:
[DESCRIBE ONE CONCRETE DETAIL FROM THE LAST 7 DAYS: A NUMBER, AN ANONYMISED NAME, A TIME OF DAY, A SENTENCE SOMEONE ACTUALLY SAID. THE MORE GRANULAR, THE BETTER THE OUTPUT.]
Please do the following:
1. Identify the strongest connection between this public moment and our daily work. Not a solidarity statement. Not a funding ask. A reality connection.
2. Write three bridge sentences that move from the public moment to our daily reality. They should feel like a door opening, not a pivot. Vary the angle: one should lead with the policy claim, one with a specific detail from our work, one with a human moment.
3. For each bridge sentence, write a 150-word LinkedIn post that:
- Opens with a hook of 10 words or fewer. The hook must stop the scroll. It does not need to summarise the post. It needs to make the reader pause.
- Follows the hook with the bridge sentence as the second line
- Includes the specific detail from our work
- Ends by returning the reader to our ongoing work, not the moment
- Uses short paragraphs (1-3 sentences max per paragraph)
4. Flag any ethical concerns: are we centring ourselves in someone else's moment? Are we performing solidarity rather than demonstrating it? Would the communities affected by this moment feel respected by our post? If any answer is uncertain, rewrite the post that triggered the concern.
5. Rate each post option on a scale of 1-5 for:
- Authenticity (does this sound like us or like every other charity?)
- Timeliness (will this still work in 48 hours?)
- Trust-building (does this make a funder more likely to believe in our work?)
Recommend one post and explain the trade-off you are accepting.
How did you get on with using this AI prompt? I'd love to hear from you. Just hit reply if you have any questions.
The Story Capture System (v1) - free Notion template
Most charity teams lose their best stories before they ever get told. A conversation with a beneficiary. A moment from a site visit. A quote that came up in a trustee meeting. None of it captured, none of it usable.
I've created this free Notion template to give you a simple system for capturing impact stories the moment they happen and tracking them through to publication.
Music that helps me focus
Most of my best thinking happens with headphones on. These are the two Spotify playlists I have built and return to regularly - binaural beats and vocal-free tracks chosen to help you get into deep focus and stay there.
13 tracks - Binaural Beats for Creative Impact Work
Calm, creative, vocal-free. Built for the kind of focused work that needs quiet behind it.
87 tracks - Deep Focus Music for Changemakers
The full playlist I listen to most days. Binaural beats and mostly vocal-free music - headphones on, distractions out.
Subscribe to the playlist
Before you go
If you found this newsletter useful, please forward it to a colleague and invite them to subscribe at:
www.impactstoryteller.org
Until next week, sending you safe and peaceful energy
Matt Mahmood-Ogston
Award-winning impact storyteller, photographer and charity CEO.
Portfolio: ogston.com
Work with me
Free: Download the Social Impact Storytelling Framework at ogston.com/framework
Paid: Need 1:1 help, or a few pointers? Let's talk. Book a free 15-minute call
