Storytelling for Systems Change: insights from the field

Capturing the impact of community-led work The Centre for Public Impact, Dusseldorp Forum, and Hands Up Mallee have been exploring how stories can be used to more effectively communicate the impact of community-led systems change work. Community-led place based initiatives are modelling new ways of working - shifting away from top down, program-focussed approaches towards an approach grounded in systems thinking and community-led innovations. However, while these stories of change are sitting in communities, they’re often not being told or celebrated. We wanted to understand why this is, and what might be done to better enable these stories to be shared and heard. The story of storytelling We talked to a range of people to uncover the story of storytelling - including collective impact backbone team members, community members, storytelling experts, and those working in and around community-led systems change initiatives across Australia. We explored the roles stories play in different communities; what good storytelling looks like; what barriers to storytelling might be; and what role stories can play in supporting systems change. Our findings We have learned through this project that stories can be used both to change the system and to evaluate, understand and showcase the change that is occurring in communities. We have heard that different stories require different approaches – stories that are seeking to enable change look different to those that are seeking to celebrate change.