In the years I’ve worked with Chilliwack Community Services—a non-profit organization operating in my home town—I’ve learned the power of hearing personal stories. Personal stories work for every kind of organization when you think about it, from testimonials for weight loss products to testifying for religious groups.

Going where the emotion is

Hearing someone’s own story can be a very powerful thing. When I write these stories, I usually interview the story-teller. I love doing this, because it puts me right there where the emotion is. For me, tapping into that feeling is what empassions me, and drives my writing.

I recently finished an article for Chilliwack Community Service’s 2010 community report. The piece had to do with the number of families, adults and children they’ve helped in the past year. My resource to write this article? A spreadsheet. Yup. Me and good old Excel, getting up close and personal.

Writing a story without words

The numbers were certainly impressive, and I could have written quite a bit about all the stats on who and how many and where they lived and on and on. But sometimes you have to do more than write to write a story, and even though words are my thing, sometimes they’re not enough. I thought back to the interviews I had done for the report, particularly the one where I got to hold an infant again—I hadn’t done that in quite a few years! And that’s when I realized I could literally put a face on the numbers. So here’s what I did:

I had to monkey around quite a while in Illustrator when I could have spent half the time in InDesign, but I’m happy with the outcome. More importantly, my client and friend Heather was happy with the outcome. Another bonus is getting the chance to do a little design, something else I haven’t done in a while.

When was the last time you had to write a story without writing?

Nala