Storytelling tips

• Take some time to consider how you want to tell your story. Is it going to be told through the eyes of someone in your organisation? Can you describe the most interesting or fascinating aspects of your organisation through a funny story? Think about who has been in your organisation for a long time who might have some interesting stories to tell. How about a new member’s view of what you do?
• A good way to think about stories is that personal stories are more engaging than stories which list a bunch of facts. (Not that we’ve got anything against your facts, in fact, there’s a box on the right hand column of every story on stories.coop which is set aside for precisely that information, but they can weigh down a story).
• The more concisely you can tell your story the more likely you are to grab and keep the interest of your reader. Stories.coop can take stories as long as 550 words approximately, but you might find you can get across the same information in as little as 200, or even 100, words.
• Using a combination of short sentences and long sentences in a story helps to build the impact of the tale for the reader. It makes a story easier to follow as well.
• Take a look at some of these stories to get a feel for how to tell a story well: (Argan Tree, Keta Sandlanders, People’s Food Co-op)
• Use the highest quality pictures to illustrate your story that you can find. Pictures of people shaking hands, or accepting a cheque, or standing in front of a sign or logo won’t tell a story as well as pictures of people doing their jobs, or high quality, professionally-taken close-ups of individuals.
• Stories should be told in English.

Adding a video to your story

• Videos have many advantages in that it is an easy format for viewers to absorb a story without having to read through a lot of text.
• Upload your video to your social media account (such as YouTube) and be sure to list the link to your video or channel when submitting your story.
• If you would like some creative approaches to make your own video, go to the video tool tips page for additional ideas.
• If you would like to develop an engaging video about your cooperative, our partner aroundtheworld.coop will conduct the research and consultation with your organization to develop a compelling story line and produce a video tailored for you. Their videos are a powerful tool to deepen members’ awareness about cooperative identity and effectively communicate worldwide the impact of cooperatives from social, economic and environmental perspectives. View examples of their video projects on their website.