Potential Impacts of a Storytelling Workshop at Different Levels
Potential impacts of storytelling for policy and governance
Storytelling workshops can generate insights that extend well beyond individual experiences. For policymakers, understanding these impacts is important for anticipating the kinds of changes such methods can support and for planning how outcomes might be recognised, scaled, and integrated into decision-making processes. Impacts can occur at multiple levels, from personal awareness to systemic policy change.
Intrapersonal change – strengthening awareness and motivation
- Storytelling encourages participants to reflect on their values, memories, and everyday practices. This self-reflection increases confidence and a sense of agency, particularly among groups who are often excluded from policy debates.
- Narratives link daily choices (such as eating, growing, or sourcing food) to biodiversity, creating emotional connections that facts alone may not achieve. For policymakers, this is a reminder that effective strategies must engage with values and motivations, not just technical information.
Interpersonal change – building trust and dialogue
- Sharing personal narratives fosters empathy, trust, and knowledge exchange. Participants learn from one another’s cultural perspectives and ecological practices, generating insights that are otherwise hidden from formal consultations.
- For policy, these exchanges highlight the importance of relational trust and social learning as foundations for collaboration in governance processes.
Community-level change – shaping collective practices
- Storytelling can reinforce collective identity and belonging, particularly when linked to shared places or practices. The ideas that emerge can spark initiatives such as community gardens, educational programmes, or local campaigns.
- These outcomes illustrate how storytelling can support community-led action, which policymakers can recognise, enable, and integrate into broader biodiversity and sustainability agendas.
Policy-level change – informing decisions and reframing expertise
- Storytelling offers decision-makers access to lived and local knowledge that can humanise planning and policy processes. This can enrich the design of services, strategies, and regulations.
- Elevating experiential knowledge challenges narrow definitions of expertise, helping to democratise participation in biodiversity governance.
- When stories are shared in public or institutional arenas, they can influence how issues are framed, shifting organisational culture and shaping advocacy or policy change.
the potential impacts of a storytelling workshop can help anticipate the kinds of changes it may support and help plan for how these can be recognised and strengthened over time. Impacts can occur at multiple levels, from individual awareness to broader policy change:
Ways to Measure Impact:
For more detailed guidance on measuring change, see the Impact module. Three techniques that may work well include:
- The Stories: The stories themselves might signal the impact of the work of the Learning Community, such as a participant describing a change in their daily habits or a new initiative they started.
- Participant testimonials: Gather accounts of how the workshop has influenced how participants perceive themselves, relate to others, or make choices.
- Observation and documentation: Notice and record changes in how people interact and communicate. This might include new topics entering everyday conversation, a shift in how issues are discussed, signs that people are more at ease engaging with one another, or moments where biodiversity is mentioned in unexpected contexts.
In this video Sandra Karner explains the impacts of the Biodiversity Storytelling workshop in PLANET4B:
Adaptations to the Method
There are several adaptations that build on a Biodiversity Storytelling method, including variations in format, theme, and content.
In this video Sandra Karner explains how a Biodiversity Storytelling workshop can be adapted to ensure all participants feel welcome and are able to participate fully.
Other adaptions to Biodiversity Storytelling method include:
Follow-up Research Activity
Following the method, offer a short research activity to build on ideas that emerged. If the group has access to the internet via phones or laptops, or if you have brought books, magazines, or printed materials, invite storytellers to explore one or two interesting points that came up in their stories. For example, they might look into the biodiversity of a vegetable they mentioned, the cultural significance of a food in another region, or environmental issues related to a farming practice. Storytellers can then reconvene and share what they discovered with the rest of the group. This process not only deepens the learning but also shifts the dynamic from personal reflection to shared inquiry.
Story Adaptations:
The stories told during use of the method within the PLANET4B gender and urban gardening case study were autobiographical stories, using food as a guiding artifact. Other story options include:
Future Stories (when designing for change or transition)
Ask storytellers to tell a future story – imagining how a space, system, or community might look in 10 or 20 years. The story might be a letter written to a future generation describing its changes and possibilities of the space or place. This exercise could compliment the Community Mapping Method, if a space is being designed, changed etc. - ask people to bring a story of the space to the mapping workshop.
Collective Stories (for group building or collaborative projects)
With a group that is familiar with each other, there might be an opportunity to move beyond individual stories and create small group activities that support the co-construction of a shared story. This could draw on shared memories, collective hopes, or imagined futures. More detail can be found in the Participatory Theatre Method.
Story Circles
Borrowed from community theatre and oral tradition practices, story circles involve small groups (up to 8 people) sitting together and taking turns to tell a story in response to a common prompt. Each participant responds in their own way, creating a shared narrative experience.
Speed Storytelling
Storytellers pair up and have 2–3 minutes each to tell a mini story in response to a prompt. After both have shared, they switch to a new partner. Prompts can be displayed or called out by the facilitator (e.g. 'Tell a story about a meal you remember', 'a place that changed', 'a food you’ve grown or foraged').
Living Library
This method turns the room into a 'library' where storytellers are the books. Each person creates a short title for their story (e.g. The Tomato that Taught me to Cook) and is available to be 'borrowed'. Small groups or individuals choose someone to listen to, then rotate. This creates a respectful one-to-one or small-group dialogue environment.
Story Weaving
Start a group story with a single sentence (e.g. 'There was a vegetable that was grown…') and go around the circle adding one sentence at a time. Afterwards, reflect collectively on the themes, or values that emerged.
Story Stations
Set up storytelling stations around the room, each with a different prompt, question, or image. Storytellers move between stations and leave a short response – a note, drawing, or audio recording. At the end, the contributions from each station are gathered and shared back with the whole group to acknowledge and reflect on the ideas that emerged.
Story Formats:
Some participants may not feel comfortable sharing stories verbally. Offering alternative forms of expression can make the workshop more inclusive:
- Drawing or visual storytelling
- Movement or dance
- Music or sound
- Writing or poetry
