By integrating ethical storytelling into their fundraising and communications practices, organizations can build trust, celebrate complexity, and restore dignity, Tanya Rumble says.
I still remember the moment when I realized that stories can heal or harm, depending on how we choose to tell them. At the time, I was a post-graduate working on a public awareness campaign about the impacts of Agent Orange in Vietnam. Our team wasn’t just creating brochures or web pages; we were shaping narratives about intergenerational health, environmental damage, and survivor communities’ struggles. While reviewing the draft language, a colleague who had worked in the community for years paused and asked, “Are we going to depict these survivors only in their suffering?” That question stopped us cold.
It forced us to reconsider every word, image, and frame. We reworked the narrative to foreground survivors’ resilience, family histories, local culture, and aspirations for the future-not just their trauma. We introduced options for people to control how their stories would be used, to request edits, and to withdraw consent. Looking back now, I see how closely that experience aligns with what Paul Ekuru later articulated through his “7 Ps of Ethical Storytelling”: purpose, permission, participation, positivity, protection, presence, and promise. His framework offers the kind of ethical clarity we were striving for but didn’t yet have language for – a reminder that storytelling should restore dignity, build trust, and serve both community and cause.
Today, I see how these same principles can be operationalized across fundraising and communications practice: moving beyond performative equity toward systems of consent, co-creation, and community accountability.
The danger of sanitized stories
One healthcare non-profit realized that their patient stories had become so polished they were indistinguishable. Details that made people real – the challenges of being a newcomer, or the pride of balancing work and caregiving – were removed in an effort to keep things upbeat. The result was a set of bland, interchangeable profiles.
By reintroducing context while protecting privacy, the stories felt more alive. They developed a story subject matrix to ensure they weren’t featuring only the same kinds of people over and over, reducing tokenism and adding diversity of voice. Here, what Ekuru calls purpose and positivity came into focus: stories should serve both the community and the cause, and they should frame people with dignity, not pity.
Informed consent as a dialogue
Another organization discovered that a client whose story was used widely had never understood the scope of consent she’d signed. She was devastated to see herself featured in a social media campaign. This prompted a change: consent became a dialogue, not a checkbox.
Staff began explaining where stories might appear, set time limits on use, and emphasized that consent could be withdrawn at any time. In one case, a young man who had aged out of foster care was invited to edit and approve his profile before it went public. He removed a detail that felt too exposing and kept another that reflected his resilience. He later said the process made him feel like a collaborator, not an object lesson.
This is Ekuru’s permission and participation in action: no consent, no story – and people must have the chance to shape how their own story is told.
From ‘saviourism’ to partnership
A foundation once introduced a scholarship recipient by saying, “Without our donors, she would have had no future.” It was meant to celebrate generosity, but it inadvertently erased the student’s own determination and agency in her education, her success, her future. Afterward, the student confided she felt diminished.
In response, the foundation reframed its messaging. Donors were described as catalysts, not rescuers: “With scholarship support, she advanced her research on climate justice – work now influencing policy.” The student remained the hero of her own story.
This reflects Ekuru’s principle of positivity, but also protection: safeguarding people from narratives that rob them of agency or retraumatize them by framing them as helpless.
Closing the loop
One of the most overlooked practices is what Ekuru calls presence and promise. Too often, stories are extracted and shared with donors but never returned to the communities where they originated. Or promises made – “This story will inspire change” – are never followed up with updates. When organizations screen final videos in the communities they have profiled, or send updates to story contributors months later explaining the tangible impact their narratives helped achieve, the result is trust. People feel not only represented but respected.
Toward a new storytelling culture
From Agent Orange campaigns in Vietnam to non-profit case studies, the lesson is the same: stories are not neutral. They shape perceptions, build (or break) trust, and either reinforce inequity or dismantle it. Ekuru’s “7 Ps” offer a simple, powerful reminder: purpose, permission, participation, positivity, protection, presence, and promise. Together, they create a covenant of dignity in how we tell stories.
Ethical storytelling asks us to:
- Listen first.
- Centre subjects as heroes of their own narratives.
- Treat consent as ongoing and revocable.
- Build systems – tool kits, calendars, review boards – that embed these principles into daily practice.
- Align storytelling with justice, not just revenue.
If more organizations adopt this orientation – integrating ethical storytelling into their fundraising and communications practices so that equity and dignity are built into the process, not added after the fact – they won’t just inspire generosity; they’ll build trust, celebrate complexity, and restore dignity. That is the kind of storytelling philanthropy needs now.
