For years, social impact storytelling has leaned on a familiar arc: problem, victim, savior. There was a crisis; they needed help. You could be the hero.

A world divided into those with problems and those with solutions.
Givers and receivers. Victims and heroes.

It was simple, captured attention, and most importantly, it raised money.

It also reinforced power imbalances, centred the wrong voices, and flattened the people and places it claimed to serve. The sector has long been overdue for a narrative shift. That opinion isn’t new; it just hasn’t quite fallen into place yet.

Over the past decade, design practice in the social impact space has begun to stretch. More organisations are experimenting with participatory approaches. Rethinking relationships with the people they serve. Questioning how decisions are made, and who gets a say.

These shifts are still uneven. But they show important progress: the work itself is changing.

The stories, however, aren’t quite there yet.

I see a sector that is starved for authenticity and the trust that would come from it.

Not because the people working in it lack integrity, far from it. But because the conditions under which they operate make authenticity difficult.

Most organisations are under constant pressure to stretch limited resources and have little access to unrestricted funding that would enable experimentation. And, ironically, the lack of trust is what got us here. There is little room for uncertainty, for process, for trying something that does not guarantee a measurable return. Under that pressure, it can feel like there’s little space to try something new.

And yet, the irony is that the sector is full of extraordinary journeys. Real calls to adventure. Long stretches of uncertainty. Unexpected partnerships that build over time. Moments of doubt, and of transformation. Stories far richer than anyone might ever know from the outside.

But those are not the stories that make it out. And if there was ever a moment for NGOs to begin telling them, it is now.

With individual giving at an all-time low, and significant funding shifts such as governmental cuts and the dismantling of USAID, the financial model of many organisations is under strain.

Generations Z and Alpha together make up nearly half of the global population — close to four billion people. They are growing up in a different media landscape, with different expectations about transparency, voice, and participation. Trust in institutions, including (I)NGOs, is low.

Attempts to rebuild that connection are still rare, but they do exist.

Take the Rockefeller Foundation’s recent collaboration with MrBeast, one of the most recognisable YouTube creators in the world. A large, established foundation partnering with a digital creator signals something. Even major institutions (not strapped for cash) recognise the need to meet audiences where they already are, and perhaps to experiment with formats that feel less institutional.

Another shift in how trust and our relationship to social causes is evolving is happening outside formal organisations altogether.

Creators, both small and large, film interactions with people in need on the street, listen to their stories, and set up GoFundMe pages in real time. These accounts document a single person’s situation as donations unfold. The amounts raised for one individual can be extraordinary.

What feels different is the proximity. The story clearly belongs to someone and feels unscripted. The person at the centre is not positioned as a passive recipient; the process is visible.

This does not mean virality is the solution. Nor should large institutions imitate influencers. But it does offer signals about how we might move forward.

If authenticity, transparency, and visible agency can mobilise extraordinary support at the level of one individual, what might change if institutional storytelling were structured around those same principles? What would happen if authorship moved closer to the people whose lives are being represented?

Recently, I worked with an NGO exploring what it would mean for its shareholders to own their own data, stories, and information. An obvious right… but still unfamiliar territory in much of the sector.

We explored simple questions.

What would it look like if people had control over how their stories were told?
What if narrative ownership sat with them from the beginning?
What if local storytelling talent were engaged and supported to tell authentic stories about the development of their communities?

The future does not need flawless stories. There is honesty in struggle. But stories should, at the very least, be expressions of authenticity.

In practice, that might mean beginning with listening sessions that focus on what matters to a community when it comes to communication, not what an organisation needs to showcase. It might mean opening up creative spaces where participants shape how their experiences are represented. It might mean building consent, control, and collaboration into the process from the start.

This shift in storytelling can move in parallel with the broader changes the industry is experiencing.

If we tell stories of agency, collaboration, and persistence, different patterns might begin to emerge.

I believe we have been telling the wrong hero’s journey, placing institutions or givers at the centre.

The shift is not about removing ourselves from the story entirely. It is about stepping out of the centre, and making room for the full journey to be seen. Listening more than we narrate.

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