Evaluating Personal Narrative Storytelling for

Advocacy
A Literature Review Prepared for Living Proof Advocacy
Authors: Jessie Austin and Emma Connell

N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 9
Contents
Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1
Executive summary............................................................................................................. 2
Why should advocates tell their stories? ......................................................................... 2
How can stories be most effective? ................................................................................ 2
How can storytellers know the impact of their work? .................................................... 3
Why storytelling matters for advocacy ............................................................................... 4
Personal stories of individuals increase comprehension and elicit empathy more
effectively than facts and statistics. .............................................................................. 4
Telling stories about individuals can be an effective means of illustrating complex
systems and social issues. ............................................................................................... 5
Narratives support public political engagement and participation, and social
transformation. ................................................................................................................ 5
While stories can generate empathy and connect people across differences, audiences
may struggle to empathize with those they perceive as different from themselves........ 6
Stories are inherently persuasive and discourage counterarguments. ............................. 6
Core components of effective advocacy stories.................................................................. 9
Becoming absorbed into a story’s narrative is an important mechanism for
persuasive influence and belief change........................................................................... 9
Personal stories in which the audience can relate to the storyteller and characters
are more persuasive....................................................................................................... 10
Including emotion in a story may be key for impact, but may not ultimately
result in productive action. ............................................................................................ 12
Storytelling strategies may be used to effectively sway overarching
policy narratives. ........................................................................................................... 13
Evaluating narrative storytelling for advocacy ................................................................. 14
Why evaluate advocacy efforts? ................................................................................... 14
Logic model development and indicator monitoring .................................................... 15
Outcome harvesting ...................................................................................................... 16
Narrative assessment ..................................................................................................... 17
Contribution Analysis ................................................................................................... 18
Frames for evaluation ................................................................................................... 19
Opportunities for future research .................................................................................. 19
Bibliography ..................................................................................................................... 21

Evaluating Narrative Storytelling for Advocacy Wilder Research, November 2019

Introduction
Living Proof Advocacy, based in Minneapolis, provides coaching and consultation
services to individual advocates as well as nonprofits, public agencies, and
communication professionals. Its staff of coaches and consultants aims to equip
individuals and organizations with the skills to effectively use personal narrative
storytelling to advocate for a cause, organization, or mission. Living Proof Advocacy
grew out of the work of Timothy Cage and John Capecci, authors of Living Proof:
Telling Your Story to Make a Difference. For nearly twenty years, Cage and Capecci have
helped thousands of advocates and hundreds of organizations share their stories to
increase awareness, influence policy, raise money, and more—about issues ranging from
health/wellness to social justice to environmental and safety concerns.

To further inform their work and the work of the organizations and individuals for whom
they consult, Living Proof Advocacy collaborated with Wilder Research to create the
following literature review. This literature review aims to address two major questions:

1. What are the identified best practices in using personal narrative storytelling for advocacy?

2. How can advocates use evaluation to understand the impact of their narrative
advocacy efforts using personal stories?

Advocacy can entail a wide variety

of strategies and approaches. For the Living Proof Advocacy’s Mission
“Living Proof Advocacy helps purpose-driven
purposes of this literature review, we
individuals and organizations unleash the power
specifically examined what existing of personal stories to advocate for positive change.
literature has to say about the We do so by providing communication coaching,
utilization of in-person speech to consulting services and coaching certification to
advocate for a cause, using personal everyday advocates, nonprofits, public agencies
and communication professionals working on
narratives. This aligns with Living
today’s most important issues.”
Proof Advocacy’s mission.

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Executive summary
This literature review focuses on the use of face-to-face personal storytelling for
advocacy purposes with the goal of informing the work of Living Proof Advocacy, the
organizations it works with, and others engaged in personal storytelling for change. First,
we examine the literature that discusses how effective stories are in changing minds and
advancing causes and why certain stories or approaches to personal storytelling are more
effective than others. Then, we discuss a variety of options advocates and evaluators can
use to determine the effectiveness of any given advocacy effort that utilizes personal
storytelling. The following is a brief summary of our findings.

Why should advocates tell their stories?

People naturally think in stories; some have described stories as the “default mode of
human thought.” They support information processing, memory development, and
provide cohesion to complex situations. Stories, and particularly those about individuals:

 Elicit greater empathy than facts and statistics

 Can motivate those who hear them to take positive action
 Lower audience members’ resistance to new ideas
Because of this, those who aim for audience members to come away with new knowledge of a
topic or with increased empathy for others should use personal stories to convey their message.

How can stories be most effective?

Stories are a useful tool for advocates, and can become even more powerful when used
strategically. The literature describes certain characteristics of stories that make them
especially persuasive:
 Transportation, in which audience members are absorbed by the story
 Relatability, in which audience members can see themselves in the story
 Emotionality, in which audience members feel for and empathize with the storyteller
Stories are an inherently persuasive form of communication that can influence audiences’
real-world knowledge and beliefs through “transporting” them into the story. Story
transportation lends itself to persuasion through stimulating emotional involvement, reducing
resistance to new or different ideas, and making abstract ideas feel tangible and concrete.

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How can storytellers know the impact of their work?
It is important for individuals and organizations to be able to evaluate their advocacy
work to allow for improvement, and also for organizations to demonstrate that their work
makes a difference. However, relatively little evaluation has been done in the field, and
the literature base is limited.

Still, there are some promising approaches to understanding the impact of stories on
audience members. These include:

 Logic model development and indicator monitoring

 Outcome harvesting
 Narrative assessment
 Contribution analysis

Storytellers have an opportunity to move the field forward by integrating evaluation into
their work. By doing so, they can more explicitly show funders and other stakeholders
why the work they do is important in moving the needle on social change.

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Why storytelling matters for advocacy
Terminology used in the storytelling literature varies based on author and discipline. For
the sake of clarity, in this review “personal stories” refer to anecdotes used to share
personal experience. “Facts-based communication” is used to broadly refer to logical
forms of communication used to provide information and educate, including technical,
scientific, argumentative, and expository forms of communication (Dahlstrom, 2014).
These forms of facts-based communication are “context-free” in that their meaning is
independent of any one person’s experience.

Personal stories of individuals increase comprehension and

elicit empathy more effectively than facts and statistics.
Stories generally—whether fictional or true to lived experience—are thought to be the
“default mode of human thought” (Dahlstrom, 2014). Stories support information
processing, memory development, and provide “structure to reality” (Dahlstrom, 2014).
Even when communicating scientific information, stories produce higher comprehension,
recall, interest, and engagement (Dahlstrom, 2014). Compared to facts-based texts,
readers are able to recall stories twice as well, regardless of their familiarity with or
interest in the subject (Graesser, Olde, & Klettke, 2002). It is likely that these benefits
extend to spoken stories, as well.

Personal stories encourage the audience to identify and empathize with those in the story
(Dahlstrom, 2014). In contrast, statistics—even about atrocities like mass murder and
genocide — are often ineffective in eliciting empathy and motivating action (Slovic, 2007).

“Psychophysical numbing” may result from our inability to appreciate losses of life as the
numbers become larger (Slovic, 2007). A story of a single individual in distress, with a
name and a face, often evokes more compassion and willingness to help than a story of
multiple people (Slovic, 2007; Slovic, Västfjäll, Erlandsson, & Gregory, 2017).

The statistics of mass murder and genocide... fail to convey the true meaning of
such atrocities… [and] fail to spark emotion or feeling and thus fail to motivate
action (Slovic, 2007, p. 80).

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Telling stories about individuals can be an effective
means of illustrating complex systems and social issues.
Personal stories can also be a means of illustrating how complex systems impact people’s
lives, demonstrating both existing problems and possible solutions (Hancox, 2017;
Neimand, 2018; Saltmarshe, 2018). Even within journalism, a field centered on the
communication of facts, personal storytelling is prevalent (Wahl-Jorgensen, 2013).
Among 101 written articles that won a Pulitzer Prize for journalism between 1995 and
2011, nearly two-thirds (63%) used personalized storytelling to draw their readers in to
the article or to illustrate a social issue (Wahl-Jorgensen, 2013, p. 135).

However, it is important to note that, by contrast, it may be difficult for individual stories
to convey the complexity of the many economic, structural, behavioral, and social factors
that influence individual health and well-being (Neiderdeppe et al., 2008) or other
complex social issues. In practice, stories may need to be carefully crafted and framed to
both accurately and sufficiently convey the complexity of social issues.

Narratives support public political engagement and

participation, and social transformation.
Sharing personal stories in a collective space helps individuals realize and demonstrate
connections between their individual struggles and larger political injustices (Clair,
Chapman, & Kunkel, 1996; Dubriwny, 2005). Through connecting individuals via shared
experience, narratives may encourage social action on behalf of the collective, and
stimulate societal transformation (Richardson, 1990).

[Stories have a] basic role in transforming individual and essentially private

experience into a shared and therefore public reality (Glasser, 1991: 235–236).

Narratives are key to democratic participation because they support community residents’
and political actors’ desire to “carefully examine a problem and arrive at well-reasoned
conclusions” (Boswell, 2013, p. 628). Narratives are universal and accessible, and allow
both community members and experts to mutually engage around political issues.
Narratives provide structure that clarifies confusing and complex information, and
“weaves [that information] together in a compelling manner” (Boswell, 2013, p. 623).
Additionally, narratives “dramatize politics… through engender[ing] vivid depictions,
compelling plot developments and emotional attachments, all qualities that can make
narrative transformative” (Boswell, 2013, p. 631).

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While stories can generate empathy and connect people
across differences, audiences may struggle to empathize
with those they perceive as different from themselves.
Johnson, Jasper, Griffin, and Huffman (2013), studying written personal narrative, found
that when readers who were given a story that countered stereotypes about Arab-Muslim
women, and that included descriptive language, dialogue, and monologue, readers
exhibited less prejudice and higher empathy for the Arab-Muslim community than
readers who were given a simple narrative summary.

But while stories have been found to help audiences empathize and relate to others,
audiences may also have a more difficult time identifying with characters who belong to
demographic groups other than their own. Kaufman and Libby (2012) found that readers
who learned sooner rather than later in a written story that the main character belonged to
a group other than their own were less immersed in the story, had higher levels of
stereotyping toward the characters in the story, and less favorable attitudes toward the
main character’s demographic group than readers who were told later of the character’s
“out-group” identity.

In another study, readers who were given a fictional story that used first-person narrative
voice and that featured a character in their “in-group” (identified as either introverted or
extroverted, in accordance with how the participants identified themselves) were more
absorbed into the story and were more likely to demonstrate related behavior change than
the comparison groups (for whom no information was provided on their introversion—
extroversion level; Kaufman & Libby, 2012).

Stories are inherently persuasive and discourage

counterarguments.
Stories have the potential to subtly influence an individual’s real-world knowledge and
beliefs, beyond other forms of communication (Green & Brock, 2000; Kennedy et al.,
2018; Murphy, Frank, Chatterjee, & Baezconde-Gabanati, 2013; Oschatz, Emde-
Lachmund, & Klimmt, 2019). In one study, women were shown either a film about a
family’s experiences with cervical cancer screenings or a film in which doctors explained
the science behind why cancer screenings are important (Murphy et al., 2013). Women
who viewed the film depicting other women’s experiences were more likely to have
improved attitudes toward cancer screenings and increased knowledge about the
importance of screenings.

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Stories may lower audience resistance to new ideas and discourage counterarguments
(Green, 2006). Stories, as opposed to facts-based communication, may prompt readers to
“engage in a less critical, more immersive form of mental engagement” (Green, 2006, p.
174). Stories may instinctively be viewed by readers as entertainment, and thus may not
trigger critical thinking, counter-arguing, or information avoidance in the audience
(Green, 2006; Green & Brock, 2000). The reader may be so focused on the stories’
events, or use so many mental resources engaging in the story, that they may have
difficulty formulating cognitive counter-arguments (Dahlstrom, 2014; Green, 2006).

Stories are commonly thought of both as authentic and as deceptive (‘telling my

story’ versus ‘telling stories’). They are seen as universal in their implications
and as dangerously particularistic—idiosyncratic, even. Storytelling is
appreciated, enjoyed, and distrusted (Polletta, 2006).

Additionally, stories may be taken as evidence of their claims in and of themselves—they

may not be held to the same standard of evidence as fact-based communication (Dahlstrom,
2014). The “cause and effect” arc used in storytelling may result in normalizing the
assumptions made by, and the conclusions drawn from, the story (Dahlstrom, 2014). This
may make the story’s assumptions and conclusions seem inevitable, more acceptable, and
more difficult to counter (Dahlstrom, 2014).

At the same time, though, those who use personal storytelling for advocacy may be
criticized for using “argument by anecdote”— that sound, logical arguments or assertions
cannot be generalized from the experience of a single person (Oldenburg & Leff, 2009).
To address this issue, storytellers may need to acknowledge that theirs is just one story,
and also that their experiences may resonate with the experiences of others, and carry
wider implications.

These findings yield important ethical considerations. Because stories may not be held to
the same standards of evidence as other forms of communication and may not be easily
refuted, they may be used to perpetuate misinformation. This may lead to unintended
harmful effects if stories motivate action that is factually misguided or selective
(Fadlallah et al., 2019).

Many a bad policy has been created because decision-makers were moved to
take action by a powerful story which was completely unrepresentative of a
larger reality (Davidson, 2017).

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Additionally, because stories are open for “multiple understandings,” they may be
manipulated and used against the storyteller themselves (Davidson, 2017, p. 4).

Dreamers— young undocumented migrants in the United States, told stories that
depicted them as ‘innocent’ and thus deserving of protections, because they were
brought to the United States by their parents at a young age through no decision
of their own— only to find these stories were used as justification for arresting
and deporting their parents, who by definition were then not ’innocent’
(Davidson, 2017, p. 4).

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Core components of effective advocacy stories
What should be included in a story, and how should it be told to make the most impact?
We examined published literature about advocacy using narrative storytelling approaches
to determine what the key components of effective advocacy storytelling are. As discussed
later, this is an emerging field; further study is needed to further clarify these “active
ingredients” of any given story and the impact it can have on an audience. We provide
this summary as an opportunity for advocate storytellers to reflect on their storytelling
practices as a complement to their own expertise and insights; for context, we have included
Living Proof Advocacy’s approach to effective storytelling at the end of this section.

Becoming absorbed into a story’s narrative is an

important mechanism for persuasive influence and
belief change.
Transportation, the cognitive state of becoming absorbed into a story, may help explain
stories’ persuasive influence (Green & Brock, 2000). When readers are transported, they
may experience emotional involvement in the story, focused cognitive attention, feelings
of suspense, lack of awareness of surroundings, and mental imagery (Green & Brock,
2000). Transportation is associated with belief acceptance, changes in knowledge,
attitudes and behavior, decreased counter-arguing, and increased interpersonal discussion
(Green & Brock, 2000).

While some theories suggest that attitude change occurs via logical consideration of
arguments, transportation may lead to audience persuasion in other ways (Green &
Brock, 2000; Petty & Cacioppo, 1981). Transportation may increase persuasion through
the reader creating connections with characters, reducing counter-arguing and critical
thinking about the argument behind the story, and making abstract ideas feel like
concrete, real experiences (Green, 2006).

To the extent that individuals are absorbed into a story or transported into a
narrative world, they may show effects of the story on their real-world beliefs
(Green & Brock, 2000, p.701).

In Green and Brock’s study (2000), audiences who were more transported into a story
reported more story-consistent beliefs, had more positive attitudes toward the narrator
and higher perceptions of the narrator’s authenticity, and were less likely to doubt or
question the story (Green and Brock, 2000). Participants’ story transportation and its
impact on their beliefs did not differ whether the story was presented as fact or fiction.

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Personal stories in which the audience can relate to the
storyteller and characters are more persuasive.
A reader’s or listener’s attachment to a storyteller or character may be key to the
persuasiveness of the story (Green & Brock, 2000). Additionally, stories with storytellers
or characters that share the reader’s or listener’s life experiences, values, cultural norms,
or social identities are particularly persuasive, especially if that characteristic is relevant
to the story (Green, 2004; Neimand, 2018). For example, women might have preconceived
misinformation that heart disease is less likely to affect them than men. It may make
more of an impact, then, for an advocate storyteller who is a woman to discuss her
experiences with heart disease.

Storytellers and characters may serve as role models for appropriate behavior, increase
perceived self-efficacy, create shifts in normative beliefs, and create emotional responses —
all of which are thought to be key components of narrative impact (Green, 2006). For
example, in response to being shown a film about cervical cancer screenings that featured
a Latinx family as the main characters, Mexican American women were most
transported, identified most with the characters, and experienced the strongest emotions
compared to European American and African American women (Murphy et al., 2013).
Transportation, personal identification with specific characters, and emotion contributed
to shifts in knowledge, attitudes, and behavioral intentions related to cervical cancer
prevention (Murphy et al., 2013).

Leave space for people to see themselves and their values and worldview
reflected in the story (Neimand, 2018).

When making decisions, people rely upon “frames, narratives, or world-views that affect
what [they] perceive and how they interpret what they perceive” (Davidson, 2017, p. 2).
When presenting new information or evidence, it is important to frame the evidence “in a
way that connects with people’s values and takes account of the frames, world-views, or
narratives in people’s heads of how the world works” (Davidson, 2017; Neimand, 2018).1

Presenting information that challenges the audience’s preconceived beliefs may increase
their likelihood of information avoidance or counter-argument (Neimand, 2018).
Neimand (2018) asserts that storytellers must gain people’s attention and empathy by
demonstrating a shared perspective, while also challenging their biased assumptions: “To
account for bias, we must leave empty space for people to see themselves and their values
and worldview reflected in the story. At the same time, we must create full spaces with
details about systemic factors that correct biases and assumptions” (para. 17). Neimand

1
Some organizations, notably the Frameworks Institute, compile resources for storyteller advocates to
use when thinking of how to best frame their topic of interest. See frameworksinstitute.org to access
their resources.

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provides the example of a systematic review of studies assessing the role of storytelling
in changing attitudes about social determinants of health. In this analysis, Niederdeppe et
al. (2008) found that stories acknowledging the role that personal health behaviors play,
but emphasizing social determinants of health as being greater predictors of health, were
more persuasive. Popular belief in the United States is that access to health care and
personal health behaviors are the greatest predictors of health outcomes; by
acknowledging this belief in some way, those who hear the story are less likely to put up
walls to hearing and believing the message of the story.

Each of us walks around with a bunch of stories in our heads about the way the
world works. And whatever we confront, whatever facts are presented to us,
whatever data we run into, we filter through these stories. And if the data agrees
with our stories, we’ll let it in and if it doesn’t, we’ll reject it. So, if you’re trying
to give people new information that they don’t have, they’ve got to have a story
in their head that will let that data in (Goodman, 2016).

A story’s ability to persuade the audience is most effective when the storyteller’s
persuasive intent is subtle (Dahlstrom, 2014; Green, 2006). When stories are overtly
persuasive and audiences feel they are being manipulated, they are more likely to rebel
and counter-argue (Dahlstrom, 2014; Green, 2006). As Neimand (2018) recommends,
“leave space for the audience to put the pieces together” (para. 14).

Living Proof Advocacy’s Five Qualities of a Well-Told Advocacy Story

Living Proof Advocacy highlights these qualities as important in telling an effective advocacy story.
Many aspects of these qualities are supported in the literature, as detailed above and below.
“Advocacy Stories are Focused”: Effective advocacy stories focus on key messages that
are aligned with the advocate’s goals and tailored to the audience. The advocates also
connect those key messages to moments in their story as a means of demonstrating the
message’s power and importance.
“Advocacy Stories Point to the Positive”: Effective advocacy stories focus on positive
change: either the positive change advocates have experienced in themselves, or positive
change they hope to see in the world (which the audience can become a part of).
“Advocacy Stories are Crafted”: Effective advocacy stories are carefully honed to be
specific to their audience and context, use language that makes the story come alive, and
include attention-grabbing and memorable “hooks.”
“Advocacy Stories are Framed”: Effective advocacy stories use “framing statements” to
shape how the audience perceives and responds to the story, and both frame and reframe
the story to specific audiences and situations, so that the story—and the storyteller—aren’t
misunderstood or dismissed.
“Advocacy Stories are Practiced”: Effective advocacy storytellers are practiced, so they can
strike a balance between using their natural speaking style, being genuine, and being confident.

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Including emotion in a story may be key for impact, but
may not ultimately result in productive action.
Emotionality is thought to be central to narrative processing and a “necessary component
to transportation into a narrative” (Murphy et al., 2013, p. 121). Emotion can be
incorporated into stories through using emotional language (e.g., words like “afraid”,
“happy,” or “worried”; Wahl-Jorgensen, 2013). Stories with concrete, visual language
used to build emotion into the narrative may be more memorable than those that use
emotional language (e.g., the difference between building dramatic tension to convey and
provoke fear in the audience, versus simply stating, “She was afraid”; Bauer, Olheiser,
Altarriba, & Landi, 2009; Neimand, 2018).

However, the audience’s emotional responses to stories may not always be productive
(Neiderdeppe et al., 2008; Murphy et al., 2013; Chattoo & Feldman, 2017). Stories may
unintentionally provoke counterproductive emotional responses (e.g., anger and
resentment; Neiderdeppe et. al., 2008). While stories that provoke guilt may motivate
audiences to take action, those stories may also create other negative emotions which
may counteract guilt’s motivating effects (Neiderdeppe et al., 2008).

For example, in Murphy and colleagues’ 2013 study comparing narrative and non-
narrative films about cervical cancer screenings, viewers who experienced happiness
while watching the film were less likely to have increased knowledge about screenings in
a post-test. This may be because positive emotions are an “evolutionary signal that all is
well and that vigilance can be relaxed,” which may have the effect of reducing
information processing and retention. Additionally, viewers who experienced both
positive and negative emotion during the film had more negative attitudes toward getting
a Pap test (Murphy et al., 2013).

This suggests that evoking emotion through stories may not necessarily be productive in
achieving desired knowledge, attitude, and behavior change in the audience (Murphy et al.,
2013). It may be important for advocate storytellers to assess whether their stories are having
the desired emotional impact and resulting belief or behavior change in their audience.

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Storytelling strategies may be used to effectively sway
overarching policy narratives.
Policy narratives are stories that demonstrate larger underlying assumptions and beliefs
about matters of policy. One of the most prominent examples in modern U.S. history is
that of the “Welfare Queen”; Ronald Reagan used the story of a woman abusing the
welfare system for her own gain to illustrate a broader point about believed misuse of the
welfare system (Hancock, 2003). Policy narratives that follow storytelling arcs and
portray characters in the form of heroes, victims, and villains have more sway with
political actors (including community members, elected officials, and elites) than
scientific or technical information (Shanahan, Jones, & McBeth, 2011).

Policy narratives often follow one of two narrative structures: a “winner’s tale,” that
seeks to limit public conflict and political participation in order to maintain the status
quo, or a “loser’s tale,” that appeals to the broad public interest and mobilizes broad
political participation in order to affect policy change (Shanahan, Jones, & McBeth,
2011). A “winner’s tale” will highlight how the current policies in place benefit the
audience, while a “loser’s tale” will discuss the ways in which the status quo harms the
general public, and specifically the audience in question. However, policy narratives that
overemphasize the “malicious motives, behavior, and influence of opponents” may result
in public division and policy intractability (Shanahan, Jones, & McBeth, 2011, p. 554).

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Evaluating narrative storytelling for advocacy
Why evaluate advocacy efforts?
As defined in the work of Living Proof Advocacy, “advocacy” refers to creating
meaningful change to improve the quality of life for others. It is important for individuals
and organizations to be able to evaluate their advocacy work to allow for improvement,
and also important for organizations to demonstrate that their work makes a difference to
their beneficiaries, stakeholders, and funders. Despite the importance of critically
evaluating the impact of advocacy efforts, relatively little has been done to evaluate them
because doing so is uniquely difficult (van Wessel & Ho, 2018). Because of this, the
literature base is somewhat limited. This compounds the difficulty of evaluating the
effectiveness of a particular kind of advocacy—such as using personal narratives to drive
change. Those interested in determining the impact of storytelling for advocacy should
continue to monitor the evidence base to glean new insights.

There are a variety of reasons why advocacy efforts are difficult to evaluate:

 Advocacy efforts must be flexible in their approach. Glass (2017) discusses the
importance of evolution in advocacy, as advocates must constantly be aware of
opportunities to make progress and shift strategy to meet emerging opportunities and
changes in thinking of policymakers. Because strategies and targeted outcomes must
change as the need arises, it is difficult to use a typical evaluation approach of
creating a logic model and measuring outcomes based on those stated, pre-determined
goals.
 It is difficult to fully understand or prove what advocacy efforts led to any given
change. Advocates are often working to make large, societal changes in how people
approach a given issue. These larger societal shifts, as well as more concrete goals like
changes to policy, are a result of work done by a variety of actors using a variety of
strategies. This complexity in approach makes it incredibly difficult to understand the
impact of any given advocate, organization, or approach (Arensman, van Waegeningh,
& van Wessel, 2018). As Teles and Schmitt (2011) describe, advocacy requires long
periods of “quiet” work, in which advocates continue to push for change even when
the collective attention of the community is on other matters. While advocates and
evaluators understand that the quiet work lays the foundation for eventual change, it
is much more difficult to discern the impact of that work than on larger, louder, and
more temporally connected advocacy pushes that bring about change.

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 Those who are influenced by advocacy efforts may not admit or know which
efforts persuaded them. Key markers of success in advocacy efforts often include
shifting the opinions of decision-makers, such as policymakers. While understanding
what effectively persuaded these key players is helpful in understanding which
advocacy efforts make a difference, these individuals are oftentimes unwilling to
admit that they have been persuaded (or not persuaded) by different advocacy efforts
and stories (van Wessel, 2018). Further, because of the complexity of different
advocacy interventions, these key players might not fully know which components
persuaded them, and to what degree.

While the research is limited, the evaluation methods discussed below are highlighted as
promising approaches for advocacy efforts, broadly speaking, but are applicable to the
evaluation of personal storytelling for advocacy purposes specifically.

Logic model development and indicator monitoring

The primary way that evaluators, advocates, and funders of advocacy efforts have
examined impact has been through the use of logic models. A logic model is a visual
depiction of the theory of change held by an organization or individual; it outlines what
types of changes an organization or individual expects to see as a result of their efforts.
Logic models are commonly (and preferably) created jointly by the group of people
working on a given project or program with their evaluator. By establishing a common
set of anticipated outcomes and connecting them to an effort’s activities, individuals and
organizations can establish commonly agreed upon indicators of progress.

This process of developing logic models and monitoring indicators of progress has been
the go-to approach in evaluating advocacy since the mid-2000s (Arensman, van
Waegeningh, & van Wessel, 2017).

The development of a logic model and progress monitoring of key indicators within that
logic model can be a valuable experience for advocates and advocacy organizations to go
through. Advocates and advocacy organizations can identify shorter-term milestones that
they hope to achieve and how they might be able to achieve them. Those shorter-term
milestones are opportunities for evaluation; while the grand outcome of advocacy efforts
might be nebulous and difficult to attribute to evaluation work, evaluation of milestones
can shed some light on whether or not advocates are being effective (Guthrie, Louie,
David, & Foster, 2005; Reisman, Gienapp, & Stachowiak, 2007). An advantage of this
approach is that individuals and organizations can do this work themselves. Numerous
logic model development guides exist online and for free for those who are interested in
creating or updating a logic model. Outputs or outcomes of interest can be measured by

Evaluating Narrative Storytelling for Advocacy 15 | Wilder Research, November 2019

those working within the initiative, and do not necessarily require an external evaluator to
assist or facilitate the evaluation activities.

Limitations
 Several evaluation and advocacy experts take issue with the somewhat static nature of
logic models, stating that advocates’ activities must be more nimble than static theories
of change can demonstrate (Arensman, van Waegeningh, & van Wessel, 2017).

Outcome harvesting
Outcome harvesting is an evaluation method that was developed in the mid-2000’s, and
since then has been lauded as a helpful approach to evaluating and understanding the impacts
of complex interventions (Wilson-Grau & Britt, 2012). This method is reflection-based;
rather than examining progress over time, it pinpoints a given outcome and works backward
to determine how a given intervention contributed to that outcome (Wilson-Grau, 2015).

In this method, an external partner or “harvester” collects information on what outcomes

individuals or organizations believe they have achieved through methods like interviews,
focus groups, and document review (Wilson-Grau & Britt, 2012). Oftentimes, this
harvester is an external evaluator. After an initial round of information gathering, the
harvester drafts descriptions of the outcomes, which are then brought back to the same
individuals or organizations for feedback. The harvester then goes through a process of
validating as many details of these descriptions as possible by referring to other sources.
These validated findings can serve as a point of discussion for the individuals or
organizations involved to reflect upon their work and any adjustments for future efforts.

Limitations
 Outcome Harvesting relies upon those close to the advocacy initiative identifying
which outcomes have been achieved (INTRAC, 2017). This introduces opportunities
to miss outcomes that were unanticipated or those outcomes that are more difficult to
see or measure. For example, if an advocate storyteller speaks to an audience of 1,000
people for 15 minutes, those people disperse and go back to their daily lives. How can
we measure if they experienced any changes in attitudes or behaviors, or if they became
advocates for the same cause as a result of the initial story they were exposed to?
 The process of Outcome Harvesting can be time- and resource-intensive (INTRAC,
2017). Because of the participatory nature of the work from both internal and external
actors, the iterative nature of the work, as well as the focus on recording evidence that
supports the accounts of internal and external actors, the scope of Outcome Harvesting
efforts can quickly expand.

Evaluating Narrative Storytelling for Advocacy 16 | Wilder Research, November 2019

 Outcome Harvesting should be conducted by someone with strong qualitative
analysis skills.

Narrative assessment
This method of evaluation marries theory of change work with storytelling itself. Within
this approach, a storyteller and an evaluator walk through the story of an initiative’s
change (van Wessel, 2018). An individual external to the advocacy effort, preferably an
evaluation expert, sits down with an advocate as they recount the process of their
advocacy effort and the outcomes they believe the effort was able to create. The evaluator
then seeks to validate the components of the story and seeks evidence to support that the
activities did result in the stated outcomes. It necessitates that the advocacy effort have an
existing theory of change, which serves as the framework for the conversation used in the
Narrative Assessment.

It is often only in light of a theory of change, in some form, that the

interconnected sequence of past actions and events can be given meaning and
relevance for programmes and their stakeholders, as a journey over time, with
twists and turns, setbacks and advances (van Wessel, 2018).

Ultimately, this approach is a co-construction of the story of impact based on the

advocate’s understanding and the theory of change (van Wessel & Ho, 2018). The
external evaluator critically engages this story and probes to determine whether or not it
is plausible that the advocacy activities contributed to the stated outcomes. In this way,
Narrative Assessment differs from Outcome Harvesting, as it seeks to determine what is
plausible and does not go the extra step of validating those claims with other evidence
(van Wessel, 2018).

Limitations
 While this approach might be quite helpful for advocates who aim to understand the
impact of their work, the creator of the method provides some caveats about this
method. Most notably, the author notes that stories, by their nature, tie together events
to make one narrative from a variety of components (van Wessel, 2018). While this is
helpful for a variety of reasons, as discussed later in this review, it has the potential of
introducing bias. Activities and outcomes that appear to connect in hindsight do not
always tie together in these ways; stories might then be weaving together disparate
components in a way that leads the audience to believe they truly do work together.
 Narrative Assessment as a method does not necessitate that external sources and
evidence be used to affirm statements from the advocate; this can make stating
anything with certainty difficult for the advocate, the evaluator, or those using the
results of the Narrative Assessment (van Wessel & Ho, 2018).

Evaluating Narrative Storytelling for Advocacy 17 | Wilder Research, November 2019

 Narrative Assessment should be conducted by an external evaluator, to attempt to
approach objectivity.

Contribution Analysis
Contribution Analysis is similar to Narrative Assessment in that its aim is to identify a
plausible understanding of how a given program or initiative contributed to observed
outcomes (Mayne, 2008). It is intended to provide greater clarity for teams working on a
complex program or initiative and to aid in review and revision of theories of change
(Kane, Levine, Orians, & Reinelt, 2017)

The Contribution Analysis process begins with identification of which questions the
evaluating group wants to answer (Mayne, 2008). These often revolve around
understanding whether or not a program or initiative contributed to an observed outcome,
and if so, to what extent it has made a difference. It can also help those involved in the
analysis determine what conditions are helpful or necessary for a program or initiative to
make a difference.

Those participating in the analysis then work together to create a theory of change to
spell out how the program or initiative is supposed to work (Mayne, 2008).2 The analysis
team then identifies existing evidence for the program, based on either published
literature that addresses these presumed causal connections or evaluation or research
specific to the program or initiative that is being assessed. Ideally, Contribution Analysis
occurs after some evaluation of the program or initiative in question has been conducted.

From this point, the analysis team creates a story to describe why it is reasonable to think
that their program or initiative has led to outcomes (Mayne, 2008). This story should
follow the logical path of the theory of change and be supported by existing evidence.
Once the story is formulated, analysis team members examine the story and its logical
progression, looking for areas that need to be examined further or that do not seem fully
reasonable. Team members can seek out additional evidence to support these areas to
either bolster their Contribution Analysis claims or determine that it should be revised.

Limitations
 Similar to Narrative Assessment, Contribution Analysis ultimately aims to identify
plausible connections. External evidence can support these claims, but it is important
for members of the analysis team to be up front about the degree to which they can
definitively claim contribution to an observed outcome.

2
Theories of change are descriptions of a given program or effort’s intended outcomes and how the
program believes they will achieve them. They describe inputs, activities, anticipated outputs, and
anticipated outcomes of the program.

Evaluating Narrative Storytelling for Advocacy 18 | Wilder Research, November 2019

 Contribution Analysis should be conducted by an external evaluator or someone with
strong qualitative analysis skills.

Frames for evaluation

While evaluation regularly looks at the outcomes of work, advocacy evaluators have
suggested a couple of different types of frameworks for evaluating advocacy efforts.

Evaluating conditions for impact

Barkhorn, Huttner, and Blau (2013) discuss an approach for foundations to determine the
potential impact of policy-focused advocacy initiatives as a means by which they can
increase their own impact. The authors invite funders to examine nine conditions that
researchers and practitioners have identified as being critical for successful policy
advocacy. This includes having an open policy window, a developed feasible solution,
strong campaign leaders, a mobilized public, and decision-makers who are bought in to
the goals of the advocates. The authors suggest that funders could provide rankings on
the strength of each condition to create a summed value for each advocacy effort to
reflect its perceived potential for success.

Evaluating the advocates themselves

Teles and Schmitt (2011) discuss the difficulty of evaluating advocacy efforts, and
suggest that evaluation instead focus on the advocates themselves. They encourage
funders to be quite familiar with advocates and advocacy organizations and assess them
based on the advocates’ adaptability, strategic capacity, perceived overall influence, and
the value they generate for others. The authors argue that this approach better sets up the
conditions for funders to fund the “quiet work” of advocacy (Teles & Schmitt, 2011).

Opportunities for future research

Existing research that assesses the impact of advocacy efforts primarily assesses the
impact of advocacy on policy outcomes; further research is needed to understand the
impact of advocacy, and specifically storytelling for advocacy, more broadly.

Evaluation of the use of storytelling in advocacy efforts is an emerging field, with much
of the literature published in only the past decade. A recent systematic review on the impact
of storytelling on health policy found that storytelling advocacy is a promising practice.

Evaluating Narrative Storytelling for Advocacy 19 | Wilder Research, November 2019

 Findings suggest that narratives may have a positive influence when used as
inspiration and empowerment tools to stimulate policy inquiries; as educational
and awareness tools to initiate policy discussions (and gain public support
leading to policy prioritization); and as advocacy and lobbying tools to
formulate, adopt, or implement policy (Fadlallah et al., 2019).

However, while the studies’ findings were promising, they did not meet the authors’
standards of methodological rigor for establishing the causal link between the storytelling
interventions and policy outcomes (Fadlallah et al., 2019). Thus, findings should be
interpreted with caution. Across the storytelling advocacy literature, there are limitations
in the existing research in terms of content and rigor. Because of this, it is important to
interpret the evidence cautiously.

There are many opportunities for future research. Notably, it is not obvious how effective
stories should be constructed or which story characteristics (e.g., plot, character,
structure, realism) are most important to their effectiveness (Neiderdeppe et al., 2008). In
Fadlallah and colleagues’ (2019) systematic review, studies included limited descriptions
of the narrative interventions (including how often people encountered the narrative,
narrative length, content including plot, characters, and perceived credibility of the story)
so they were unable to assess the impact of these factors. It is also unknown how
narrative communication influences audience trust in the presented information,
especially when conflicting narratives are presented (Dahlstrom, 2014). Additionally,
differences in the narrative impact of true, personal stories and that of fictional stories
may merit future study.

These and other evaluation studies with rigorous methodology are needed to establish what
impact storytelling has on change and what aspects of stories are necessary for those impacts.

Evaluating Narrative Storytelling for Advocacy 20 | Wilder Research, November 2019

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Evaluating Narrative Storytelling for Advocacy 24 | Wilder Research, November 2019

Acknowledgements Wilder Research, a division of Amherst H. Wilder
Foundation, is a nationally respected nonprofit
The authors would like to thank John Capecci, research and evaluation group. For more than
Tim Cage, and Aly Koning of Living Proof 100 years, Wilder Research has gathered and
Advocacy for giving us the opportunity to do this
interpreted facts and trends to help families and
work and for their contributions to the project.
communities thrive, get at the core of community
The following Wilder Research staff contributed
concerns, and uncover issues that are overlooked
to this project: or poorly understood.

Jen Collins 451 Lexington Parkway North

Rachel Fields Saint Paul, Minnesota 55104
Nicole MartinRogers 651-280-2700 | www.wilderresearch.org
Kerry Walsh