Stories About Us: Developing your own social enterprise story

What exactly is a story? We can all tell stories and we do so, every day. But if we want to work with stories in business, we have to be clear about the basic elements that make up a story, and the differences between a good and an inferior story. We can then work with these elements in a purposeful way, and think, for example, about how to construct a story for a particular target group or area of use.

Every story basically consists of six key elements. Not all of them have to be part of a story. Certainly, however, the first two:

• Main character
• Aim / Target
• Suppporter
• Antagonist
• Benefactor
• Beneficiaries

What impels each character to act in a certain way? What is the principal aim and how can this be best introduced in the story? Did it change over time? These are just a few questions you should ask yourself when working on your story.

This tool guides you systemically through the basic elements of your story. In a step-by-step approach you can read more about all roles and put down your thoughts on this role in your own story.

At the end you get the possibility to download an overview sheet which contains your descriptions and the outline of how the basic elements in your story interact with one another.