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Storytelling
Storytelling workshops for charities in London: what to expect and how to choose one
What a good charity storytelling workshop should leave your team with, in person in London or online, how to choose a trainer, and what it costs.
Most charities don’t have a storytelling problem. They have a confidence problem.
The stories that would win your next grant already exist. They’re in your frontline team’s heads and on their phones. A support worker watched someone speak up for the first time. A volunteer saw a parent change their mind. None of it reaches the funding bid, because nobody feels sure they’re allowed to tell it.
A good storytelling workshop fixes that. A poor one leaves your team with a slide deck and a nice afternoon. This guide explains the difference, so you can choose well, whether you book me or someone else.
Why charities book storytelling training
In almost every organisation I work with, the same three gaps turn up.
Coverage that goes nowhere. You’ve had the press, the award or the visit from the minister. Then nothing changed in your funding.
Numbers without people. Hundreds of sessions delivered, every figure true, and not one of them tells a funder what changed for the person on the other side.
A team waiting to feel ready. People wait for confidence before they start. But confidence only comes after you’ve done it a few times.
Underneath all three are the same fears: not knowing what to say, not knowing if you’re allowed to say it, and worrying about what appears in the comments afterwards. A template can’t fix those. They need permission, said out loud, with the team in the room.
What a good workshop should leave your team with
Judge any storytelling workshop by what your team can do the following Monday. I’d look for four things.
One story above all your services. A single story that explains why your organisation exists, so funding stops arriving restricted to one project.
Your numbers rebuilt as people. The same data, told as what changed and for whom.
One story, three audiences. The same story retold for a major donor, a corporate funder and the press.
Consent that holds. A way to capture stories as they happen, with a consent conversation that still holds in five years.
If a workshop can’t name what your team will leave with, it’s probably a generic deck.
In person in London, or online?
Both work. They suit different teams.
In person works best when the main barrier is confidence. People practise out loud, hear each other’s stories and see that they’re not the only one who feels unsure. If your team is based in London, you avoid travel time and can bring in frontline staff who might never join a long video call.
Online works best when your team is spread out, or when you want to test the approach before committing more time. It’s quicker to arrange and cheaper.
Either way, the format matters less than two things: whether the workshop is built around your organisation, and whether there’s a follow-up.
How to choose a storytelling trainer
Before you book anyone, ask these five questions.
Have they worked inside a charity? Someone who has needed a story for a funding deadline will teach differently from someone who has only written about it.
Will they rebuild the workshop around you? Ask whether they’ll use your services, your audiences and your real stories, or a standard set of examples.
How do they handle consent? If the answer is “we get a form signed”, keep looking. Consent is a conversation, and some stories need protecting even after someone has said yes.
Is there a follow-up? One session rarely changes how a team works. Skills stick when people use them on real work and come back to talk about what happened.
Can they show you work they’ve made? Ask for stories, photographs or reports that came out of their training or projects.
What it costs
Prices vary, so here are mine as one reference point. My standard workshop is from £750 for two hours online, with no customisation. A workshop built around your organisation is from £1,700, including a free consultation beforehand, a three-hour session, a follow-up two months later, templates for your services and thirty days of email support. Online is standard. In person is extra for travel. All prices exclude VAT.
One thing to try this week
You don’t need a workshop to start. At your next team meeting, give everyone five minutes to write down one moment this month when they saw something change for someone you support. Not a statistic. A moment.
Read them out. You’ll almost certainly find two or three stories you didn’t know you had, and a team that’s surprised how much it already knows. That’s where every good storytelling workshop starts.
If you’d like help taking that further, my social impact storytelling workshops are run in London and online, and built around your organisation. And if you’re new to the idea, start with my guide to what social impact storytelling is.
Matt Mahmood-Ogston is a London-based social impact storyteller and documentary photographer. He founded the Naz and Matt Foundation in 2014 and has led it for more than 12 years.
