Transformative Stories: A Framework for Crafting Stories for Social Impact Organizations

This paper provides a framework to guide the construction of transformative stories by Social Impact Organizations (SIOs) including nonprofit organizations, public policy entities, and for-profit social benefit enterprises. This framework is built from the integration of the academic literature on narratives and narrative construction relevant to SIO story construction. In this transformative story construction framework, we outline how SIOs can assemble and craft authentic and effective stories that convey an SIO's impact, engage audiences, and call those audiences to action as well as develop and manage a portfolio of such stories. The framework also puts forth recommendations to guide the marketplace practice of transformative story construction by SIOs. Finally, the paper outlines questions to engage SIOs in collaborative research to refine the practice of constructing stories with the power transform