How to collect stories with compassion

Here’s the thing about people’s stories – as critical as they are for organizations to understand the difference they are making, they’re not always easy to share.

I recently experienced this myself.

An advocacy group that I am part of, the Ohio Perinatal Behavioral Health Task Force, is collecting stories related to mental/behavioral health during pregnancy and postpartum, as well as birth trauma.

I had the tab to their submission form open on my browser for so long. I tried once or twice to sit down and write out my story, but some days I just wasn’t emotionally ready.

I was finally able to find the time, space, and courage to get my story down in words, and I’m so glad I did.

But it reminds me that when we ask families to share their personal experiences, we not only need to accommodate their schedules and preferences but also give them grace.

So here is my guide – informed by my own experience and also by many years of collecting stories from others – for how to collect stories with compassion.

Here are four methods you can easily use to gather stories from the families you serve:

Each one has room for adjustment based on how your organization operates or what your families need. I’ll discuss the benefits and challenges of each one below, along with some additional tips to keep in mind.

Focus Groups and Interviews

Focus groups are facilitated discussions among a small group of stakeholders (no more than 10) that are guided by a set of pre-planned questions. Interviews often are structured similarly but are just a one-on-one conversation.

For many child- and family-serving nonprofits and organizations, focus groups are the bread and butter of story collection. While I’ve been hearing murmurs that focus groups are falling out of favor, I still love running them and think they’re a great way to engage families.

Benefits

– They are pretty easy to coordinate – pick a few times, and put them on the calendar! Families can choose which one works for them.

– They are efficient – you get a lot of information in a relatively short amount of time.

– They are a great place to foster a sense of safety and community among people with similar experiences – sometimes, focus groups can feel like support groups for individuals who have been somewhat isolated in their experiences.

– These methods allow for conversation, and people can respond to the ideas of others and get feedback on what they have shared – it makes for a rich and engaging discussion.

Challenges

– Sometimes participants need a safe space to vent and this comes out when they’re in a group of people with similar experiences.

It is critical for the facilitator to have experience managing group conversations and gently encouraging those participants to share the air time (while acknowledging and honoring what they have shared).

– For focus groups and interviews, it is important to either have a note-taker or recording device so that you can capture all that is shared. Recording is ideal so that you can generate a transcript to reference (Zoom can do this, you can use AI tools if that’s your jam, or you can contract this out).

Open-Ended Survey Questions

Families get surveyed all the time, right? Satisfaction surveys, event evaluations … you name it, I’m sure you’re sending it out.

One thing we try to be mindful of is how many surveys you send a client or family – we don’t want them to burn out. So one way to maximize the surveys you are sending is to add some open-ended questions (where they write in a response) to the end that give them a chance to share in their own words.

Benefits

– This is one of the simplest, quickest, and cheapest methods for getting feedback and stories – just add on to what you’re already asking of families.

– These are easy to implement where families already are – pantry days, program sign-ups, school events – where they can fill out the survey on their phones or paper while they wait.

Or, families can take their time and complete the survey when they have the space to think.

Challenges

– Response rates may be low. It is hard enough to get families to fill out the surveys you need (I know you know), but when you look at the surveys you do collect, there’s usually a decent percentage that have blanks where these wonderful stories should go.

Plan for this in advance and make sure you’ve got a solid plan for distributing the survey (and ideally, compensating those who do respond) to make sure you collect enough.

Community Conversations

There are a number of different ways that you can collect stories in bigger groups.

You might have heard of “listening sessions,” which are events that are structured around hearing from stakeholders, often in multiple, small groups with facilitators (think of lots of round tables in a big room).

Where I live, The Columbus Foundation hosts an annual listening day called “The Big Table” that engages people and organizations across the city to provide opportunities to connect and share stories.

Another model of this larger-group conversation is called the World Cafe Model. I was lucky to attend a training on this model a few months ago at OSU’s College of Social Work.

Benefits

– These events can be FUN! It can be really refreshing to be in community with people, especially when it is about something you are passionate about.

– These types of conversations are best done in person, but they can be held online using breakout rooms and other modalities like virtual whiteboards.

– Community conversations are an adaptable and communal way of engaging people in small- and large-group conversations, and some models, like the World Cafe, also give opportunities for writing or drawing in addition to speaking.

– Participants may feel that they are really getting something out of the event, so you don’t need to feel like you are just asking/taking.

Challenges

– These can require a lot of planning! The World Cafe model in particular requires a lot of pre-work to ensure that the environment is welcoming; materials are available and accessible; and participants are invited, attend, and engage.

– More resources may be required to host an in-person event, such as getting a large enough space, having materials, (ideally) providing some type of snacks or a meal, and having enough facilitators present.

– These are best suited for larger groups, so recruitment is critical. They might not be the best fit for every situation.

Online Forms

When I shared my childbirth and postpartum story, I used an online form to do it. Forms can be embedded in an organization’s website (or sometimes even in an email); of course, you can use a separate link to a survey platform as well.

Create a QR code using your survey platform or a website like bit.ly to make it even easier for people to find the link!

Benefits

– Like surveys, forms are available 24-7, giving people the opportunity to be brave on their own time, at their own pace. This is also a great way to accommodate conflicting schedules.

– Filling out an online form also allows for anonymity – you don’t have to talk to anyone directly, you have the option of not sharing your name, and you can share in the safety of your own home.

Challenges

– You miss the opportunity for discussion or asking follow-up questions to get clarification or additional details.

– You are subject to a person’s own writing, which can sometimes be harder to interpret or understand, particularly if they have lower literacy levels or are not native English speakers.

– You can’t really compensate someone for filling out an anonymous form (although seeing their story out there in the world is sometimes valuable enough!).

How to implement these strategies with empathy and compassion

The great thing about engaging stakeholders in storytelling is that you don’t have to pick just one way to do it.

Maybe you host some focus groups in addition to your school’s annual survey. Perhaps your nonprofit schedules a community conversation and then share a link to an online submission for where they can share more after the event.

But whatever you choose, always remember that people choosing to share their feedback and stories are coming to you with courage. We must treat them – and their stories – with care.

Here are a few ways to do that.

Be accommodating

– Offer multiple options – different times of day, days of the week, in-person and virtual opportunities – to engage people whose schedules may be packed or inflexible.

– Always consider language interpretation and translation to make your story collection as accessible as possible to your community. Translate the survey into the top few languages spoken in your community. Advertise that you’ll have interpretation at focus groups and community conversations (even better, translate those flyers too!) so that the diversity of your population is reflected in the feedback you collect and so that families who aren’t native English speakers (or may not speak English at all) still get their voices heard and also feel comfortable participating.

Pro tip: If you’re going to have focus groups or interviews with speakers or multiple languages, schedule them separately! I once did a focus group with three different languages spoken and multiple interpreters (not my choice!), and it was slow and chaotic. Keep it simple!

Keep in mind that you’ll also need someone to translate what the families share once they take the survey, fill out a form, or participate in a conversation. This takes time and often costs money, but is a critical step for multi-lingual communities.

– Knowing that people are taking time out of their schedules to participate, it is so critical to compensate them. If you can’t afford to pay people or provide a gift card, even having some snacks or sending a thank-you note can show them that their time and contributions are appreciated.

Create a safe space

– It’s important to be both culturally responsive, equitable, and empathetic when you facilitate conversations – that means to create a warm and supportive environment, make sure questions are appropriate, ensure that everyone understands what is being asked, give space for people NOT to share, and make sure everyone who wants to share gets a chance.

– Have participants sign a consent form that shares how you will use and protect what they share. Will it be confidential? Will you use names? Make these decisions ahead of time and get participants to agree to your terms ahead of time so they know where their stories will live and how they will be used.

– Support and thank people for sharing and being vulnerable. When you work in child- and family-serving organizations, conversations can get heavy and emotional. Assure participants that it’s okay if they cry or have a hard time and express gratitude that they let you in.

Rely on relationships

– People are more likely to agree to share their story or take time out of their busy schedules when someone they trust is asking. Focus on your relationships with families first before asking something personal of them.

– Similarly, after the conversations (when possible), keep those connections going. Say hi (using their name) when you see them in the building. Share a report you create with the outcomes of data collection or the stories that were shared. Provide an update on how their contributions benefited the organization or other families.

Our call to action

I love collecting people’s stories because it lets them know that they matter.

Their experiences matter.

What they went through can have a larger purpose.

So it is our responsibility to honor and uplift those feelings and experiences.

And in doing so, we can see how the work we are doing is truly helping families work through and overcome those experiences.