The Story Is Not Yours to Own

Why Ethical Storytelling Is a Leadership Responsibility

A nonprofit can have the best intentions in the world and still exploit someone’s story. It can happen without anyone intending harm. A campaign deadline approaches. A donor wants to see impact. A grant application needs a compelling example. A communications team finds someone whose experience perfectly illustrates the organization’s mission.

The camera comes out. The questions begin. And slowly, almost imperceptibly, something changes. The person who lived the story becomes the subject of the story. Then the organization becomes the narrator. Eventually, the story that belonged to a human being becomes a communications asset.

Let me explain why that’s a leadership problem.

Ethical storytelling isn’t simply a communications issue. It is a question of power, consent, dignity and accountability. When an organization asks someone to share a deeply personal experience, the organization usually holds considerably more institutional power. It controls the platform, the audience, the editing process and often the resources the storyteller needs. The storyteller brings something the organization cannot manufacture. Their lived experience. That imbalance matters.

The Person Is Not the Campaign

Nonprofits are often taught to tell stories because stories move people. That’s true. Stories can help donors understand an issue. They can make statistics human. They can help communities see themselves represented. They can inspire people to act. But there is a dangerous line between telling someone’s story and using someone’s story. A person is more than the worst thing that happened to them. Someone recovering from addiction is not a recovery statistic. Someone who experienced homelessness is not a homelessness story. A survivor is not an organization’s proof of impact. A young person receiving services is not a fundraising device.

The ethical question isn’t simply:

Can we tell this story?

It is:

Who owns the story, who controls how it is told, and who benefits from telling it?

That is where leadership enters the conversation.

Identifiable Doesn’t Always Mean Named

I recently encountered this issue with a nonprofit I am familiar with. A story about someone who had received services had previously been published. The person’s name wasn’t necessarily the most obvious identifying detail. The problem was that the combination of details in the story made the person recognizable to people who knew the community.

That distinction matters.

Removing someone’s name does not automatically make a story anonymous.

If a reader can identify the person from the circumstances, timeline, photograph, program involvement, location, or other details, the individual’s privacy may not have been meaningfully protected.

The organization may believe it has removed identifying information. The person whose life is being described may experience the publication very differently.

Let me explain.

Ethical storytelling isn’t simply about whether an organization has permission to publish a story. It’s about whether the person has meaningful control over how their story is presented, how identifiable they are, and how that story may follow them after publication.

An ethical review should ask a simple question before anything goes public:

Could someone who knows this community figure out who this person is?

If the answer is yes, removing the person’s name isn’t enough.

Sometimes protecting someone’s privacy means changing or removing additional details, using a pseudonym, obtaining renewed consent, or deciding that the story should not be published at all.

The goal isn’t to make the person anonymous on paper. The goal is to protect the person in reality.

Consent Is More Than a Signature

A signed release form can tell an organization that someone agreed to something. It doesn’t automatically mean the person understood the full implications of what they were agreeing to. Ethical storytelling requires informed, ongoing consent.

People should understand:

• Why their story is being collected

• Where it will appear

• Who may see it

• Whether it will be used in writing, photography, video or audio

• How long the organization intends to use it

• Whether they can request changes or withdrawal

• Whether anonymity is available

Consent should function as a continuing agreement rather than a one-time transaction. That distinction matters because circumstances change. A person who agrees to share something with a nonprofit may later realize that having the story permanently available online feels very different from what they imagined. Ethical organizations leave room for that reality.

Give People a Voice in the Final Story

Here’s another uncomfortable question:

What if the person doesn’t like the way you told their story?

Do they get to say so?

Ethical storytelling isn’t just about obtaining permission to interview someone. It is about treating the person as a participant in the creation of the narrative. That can mean sharing drafts. It can mean allowing someone to clarify a quote. It can mean removing something that no longer feels appropriate. It can mean asking:

“Does this accurately represent your experience?”

That’s not giving someone editorial control over every aspect of an organization’s communications. It’s recognizing that accuracy and dignity matter more than getting the perfect fundraising story.

Trauma Doesn’t Make a Better Story

There is another temptation in nonprofit storytelling: the belief that the more painful the story, the more powerful the fundraising appeal. That’s dangerous. If an interviewer keeps pushing because they believe the emotional moment will make a better video, the process has stopped being about the storyteller. It has become about the audience. Ethical storytelling requires a different approach. Before an interview, establish that the person can stop at any time. Give them permission to skip questions. Pay attention when someone becomes uncomfortable. Don’t push for an emotional reaction because you think it will make the final product more compelling. That’s not storytelling. That’s extraction.

The Power Imbalance Is the Part We Don’t Talk About Enough

Imagine asking someone for their story while they are receiving services from your organization. Now imagine asking them while they’re applying for assistance. Or when they’re worried about losing housing. Or when they’re depending on the organization for support.

Technically, you may have asked:

“Would you like to participate?”

But did they genuinely feel free to say no?

That’s the harder question. The organization may have resources, institutional authority and access to audiences. The individual has their experience.

Ethical storytelling requires acknowledging that imbalance rather than pretending the relationship is automatically equal.

Power doesn’t disappear because everyone in the room has good intentions.

The Story Should Show Agency, Not Just Adversity

There is a huge difference between these two narratives:

“Maria had nowhere to go and had lost everything. Your donation can save someone like her.”

And:

“Maria rebuilt her life after displacement and now advocates for others facing housing instability.”

Both may describe the same person’s circumstances. But one makes the person a victim. The other makes the person a human being with agency. Ethical storytelling doesn’t require us to hide hardship. It requires us to stop making hardship the entirety of someone’s identity. The shift is from passive victimhood toward agency, capability and participation. That’s better storytelling. But more importantly, it’s more truthful storytelling.

Slow Down

This may be the hardest lesson for organizations. Ethical storytelling takes time. Relationships take time. Consent conversations take time. Draft reviews take time. Translation takes time. Accessibility takes time. Sometimes the organization wants the story by Friday. The person whose life you’re asking them to expose may need much longer to decide whether they are comfortable sharing it. Those timelines are not equally important.

The deadline is the organization’s problem.

It should not automatically become the storyteller’s burden. Rushed timelines are exactly when relationship-building, meaningful review and informed consent become vulnerable to being treated as obstacles instead of necessities.

What Ethical Storytelling Actually Builds

There is a misconception that ethical storytelling limits what nonprofits can accomplish. I think the opposite is true. When people trust an organization with their stories, the organization gains something far more valuable than a compelling campaign. It gains trust. And trust compounds.

People are more likely to participate when they believe they will be respected. Communities are more likely to engage when they believe an organization will listen. Donors are more likely to believe an organization’s impact when its storytelling feels honest rather than manufactured. And employees are more likely to make ethical decisions when leadership has demonstrated that ethics aren’t simply words in a policy manual. That’s why storytelling is ultimately a leadership issue.

The Leadership Test

Here’s the test I’d give any organization before it publishes someone’s story:

Would we still tell this story if it didn’t help us raise money?

If the answer is no, ask why.

Would the storyteller recognize themselves in the way we have portrayed them?

If the answer is no, stop.

Did they genuinely understand where their story would appear?

If the answer is no, go back.

Could someone who knows this community identify them even if their name isn’t included?

If the answer is yes, reconsider what you’re publishing.

Would they feel comfortable seeing this story five years from now?

If you don’t know, ask them.

And finally:

Who has more control over this story: the person who lived it or the organization using it?

That question tells you almost everything you need to know.

The Story Belongs to the Person Who Lived It

I’ve worked across media, public service and nonprofit leadership, and one thing has become increasingly clear to me:

The organizations with the strongest relationships aren’t necessarily the ones with the most polished stories.

They’re the ones willing to slow down and build relationships before they build content. They ask questions they don’t already know the answers to and listen when the answer complicates the narrative they wanted. They share drafts. They admit when they got something wrong. And they understand that a person’s lived experience is not an organizational asset simply because the organization had access to it.

The story is not yours to own. The relationship is, and when someone trusts an organization enough to hand over a piece of their life, the organization’s responsibility isn’t to extract the most compelling version of it. It’s to protect it, respect it and tell it on terms that preserve the person’s dignity and agency.

The way an organization handles someone’s story tells a great deal about how it handles power.

About Sanjanetta Barnes

Sanjanetta Barnes writes and speaks about leadership, power, media, organizational culture and the human side of institutional decision-making. Her work draws on experience across media, public service and nonprofit leadership, with a particular interest in how organizations communicate with the people they serve.