Stories can have a significant impact on people, communities, and culture. They can help people understand others, develop empathy, and learn to relate to others. Stories can also inspire change, create community, and challenge norms. The Impact Story Initiative aims to spotlight how our learners have applied new knowledge and skills following the delivery of training. Contrary to testimonials or success stories, impact stories can show the positive and not-so-positive elements as well as the intended and unintended results from what we do. By using a variety of quantitative and qualitative methods, these stories are an evaluative tool to find the impact of our training, examining whether individual, organizational or even wider change has taken place. Our brains are conditioned to understand stories from our earliest years, which is why stories tend to be more effective at conveying messages than data. Stories are a powerful tool for building an emotional connection with your audience – which is essential, as you want them to care about your work.Wherever you’re communicating your impact, weave in stories about people you work with. Think about ‘zooming in’ and ‘zooming out’. You might start by ‘zooming in’ on the story of how one of your beneficiaries overcame adversity – then ‘zooming out’ to share data, showing there are thousands more people experiencing this issue. Stories don’t only have to be about humans. If you’re tackling environmental issues, you can use story-telling to frame the impact on animals or ecosystems