By Gabbie Burton
Contributing Writer

The Fund for Women and Girls in conjunction with The Alliance for Health Equity held a “Telling Your Story” workshop on Thursday, March 5 at The Alliance for Health Equity headquarters in Coatesville. The workshop focused on teaching participants how to use their personal stories and lived experiences to improve their advocacy work. 

The workshop was led by Blake Emmanuel, the director of advocacy and policy at The Fund for Women and Girls, and Kevin Ressler, the president and CEO for The Alliance for Health Equity, and was attended by local nonprofit leaders and advocates.

“Empowerment is so important,” Emmanuel said. “For us it’s about getting folks who might not normally do advocacy to think about it differently.” 

Emmanuel explained the idea for the workshop came from her paid family leave advocacy group, where she received questions on an action item she sent out asking participants to “tell their story” and people feeling unclear on how to do so. Ressler shared his inspiration, saying that nonprofits are often used as a scapegoat for failings in policy and business and wants nonprofits and advocates to make themselves heard to combat those harmful narratives. 

“In my experience, professionally and personally, if you don't tell your story, someone else will tell your story,” Ressler said. “I would rather be in control of my narrative than victim to someone else controlling my narrative.” 

Emmanuel began the workshop with an overview on advocacy versus lobbying and how to appropriately use the two methods in nonprofit work. Emmanuel focused a majority of the lesson on how to communicate to legislators and influence policy decisions. 

“A lot of times we are talking about policymakers, elected officials, folks who are in positions of power and I think a lot of us are guilty of assuming that they know,” she said. “Nine times out of 10, you have more experience than the folks that you're advocating to so take a level of empowerment out of that.” 

Emmanuel emphasized that each person in the group has usable experience, perspective and a “why” behind their work that can be used through storytelling to aid their advocacy. Emmanuel gave strategies for effective storytelling including being authentic, staying focused and concise, balancing emotions and how to avoid exploiting themselves or others. 

“Taking that personal experience, professional experience and using it in your advocacy, making things humanized, it's just it makes a world of difference,” Emmanuel said. 

Additionally, Ressler taught a lesson on digital advocacy and showed methods of incorporating media into advocacy work.

“One of the things I like to do with nonprofit organizations is help them think about how they approach the media,” Ressler said. “So what we’re talking about here, when we’re talking about storytelling, is really about controlling your own narrative.”

Ressler then coached and interviewed a volunteer from the group, Isabel Rush of Querencia Doula Services, in an example of a video clip attendees can replicate to use on their websites and social media to communicate their work and stories to a larger audience. 

Ressler prompted Rush to share what her business is, how she feels it can help people and to share a story of someone who has been positively impacted by her work. The video was filmed  and edited for the group to watch at the end of the workshop. 

After the workshop was complete, attendees completed a worksheet that guided them step-by-step in crafting their story to use later on in their advocacy. Attendee Brianah White, a crisis counselor at the Domestic Violence Center of Chester County in Coatesville, shared her thoughts on the workshop.

“The event intrigued me because I like learning about things that have meaning. I'm not a very quantitative type of person, I like quality information and things that are more meaningful,” she said. “I really enjoyed it. It was very informative.” 

Though the event focused on the positives and left attendees feeling empowered in their advocacy, the struggles involved in advocacy work were not to be overlooked. From lack of funding to fighting against opposing interests, there was no question that the work is and will continue to be difficult. Ressler hopes getting advocates to tell their stories effectively will improve their outcomes.

“I just want nonprofits to meet with their legislators and share the stories of the impact that they’re having,” Ressler said. “I often like to say nonprofits exist where government can’t and business won’t. So, when we are continually faced with problems that are created in a vacuum of others who could solve it and then we are underfunded and then we are blamed for not solving it, we’ve got to change the dynamics of that.”