Italics Reconsidered: A Tip for Using Non-English Words in Nonprofit Communications
As a principle ethical storytelling, I often stress the importance of honoring our contributors’ terminology, and using they words they use to describe themselves and their experiences. Sometimes we use words are not widely used in the English language, and a common thing to do is italicize them so the reader doesn’t confuse them for […]
You’re the Microphone—3 Ways to Not Be a Faulty One
Campaign messages like “we are the voice for the children” and “we are the voice for the poor” are all too common. Those people already have their own voices (however they express themselves, be it though auditory speech or another means)…. Whether they are “heard” is another matter. My point is, being the metaphorical voice […]
3 Ways to Center Your Storytellers
I’ve written a lot about how utilizing empathy requires that we not project our own perceptions, assumptions, and desires on to others. While the general public seems to think “empathy” means feeling exactly what another person feels; we often don’t know how another person feels because we are actually just projecting what we would feel in another person’s situation. […]
What Happens When You Can’t Get Consent to Share Stories
If you have read my last article on “Consent is a Process, Not (Just) a Form,” you’ll know that obtaining informed consent from our clients is an important part of nonprofit storytelling. But if informed consent is just not possible, what do you do? I’m not talking about those circumstances when a client clearly declines […]
Consent is a Process, not (Just) a Form
When it comes to ethical storytelling for nonprofits, “consent” has become a buzzword. Nearly every article on the topic of ethical storytelling mentions the need for “informed consent,” yet few go to the trouble of defining what exactly that means, why we need it, or how it can get operationalized. In this article, I’m going […]