1. Effective Outreach
George Chaipa Lungu

2. Topics What is a success story?
Who is the audience for a success story?
What are elements of a good success story?
What about photos for success stories?
What can I do with success stories?

3. What is a success story?
Emphasizes the importance of work Tovwirane/Prog ressio and partners are doing in Malawi
A best case scenario
Personal
It’s NOT:
A project overview – that’s a brochure

4. Who is the audience for a success story?
Knowing your audience can help to remind you of the best writing style for this story
Press
UK staff
Malawians
Visitors

5. What are the elements of a good success story?
Make sure there is a beginning, middle, and end to your story
Make it short
Mention Tovwirane/Progressio
Include a quote
Be sure to have a personal component

6. What are the elements of a good success story?
Include a good photo with a good caption
Aim for your average person – avoid jargon
Avoid too many statistics
one is more than enough

7. Beginning, Middle, and End
Organization is key!!
Apply style guide

8. Make it short No more than two pages including pictures
Don’t use small fonts
Less is more
Why is it important to make it short?
Press only have so much room in their column
UK staff only have so much time
Visitors want to hear about individuals – they will hear from you or brochures about the project

9. Mention Tovwirane/Progressio
Sample text:
Steven has a new outlook on life thanks to the HIV Awar eness Program funded by the Plan International or United States Agency for International Development (Tovwirane/Progressio).

10. Include a quote Make it real
Don’t mention Tovwirane/Progressio or your project in the quote (but be sure to mention it in the story!)
Describe how the project changed the person’s life
“These days I cook nutritious food for the whole family and everyone feels better. And after constructing the outhouse and place to wash our hands, we don’t have diarrhea anymore.”

11. Personal Component People like stories about people.
Exercise: Tell the class in two sentences a story about a person who has benefited from your work/project.

12. Photos What kind of photos are good? Upclose Color
Demonstrate what’s happening
Examples:
Good Not so good

13. Captions A good caption can make a photo much better
Don’t forget to include the name of the person who took the photo and their organization
A caption looks like this:
Mr. Banda receives a bag of maize on behalf of his family at a World Food Programme Distribution in Chikwawa, Malawi. (Photo by: Anna Sparks, Tovwirane/Mzuzu)
Let’s think of some good captions for the photos in the p revious slide.

14. Aim for your Average Person
Who is the average reader? Remember your audience!
Don’t use jargon
Examples of jargon and how to fix them
Infant mortality
Use the rate of children who die during childbirth
Post-delivery complications
Use difficulties during childbirth, trouble delivering a baby
HCT
HIV Counseling and Testing
What are examples from your stories?

15. Avoid too many statistics
This is for a real person who may not totally
understand statistics.
What’s an example of a good statistic?
What’s an example of a statistic that is difficult to un derstand?

16. What can I do with success stories?
Share them with Progressio
Share them with your home office
Give them to visitors
Put them on your website
Give them to journalists
Use them as examples or appendices in reports

17. Now let’s work on our success stories
Step 1: Rewrite your success story (or at least the first paragr aph) using these tips
Step 2: Find a partner and read and critique each other’s stor ies.
You must make at least one positive comment and one suggestion for imp rovement
Step 3: Make a plan for what else you will do to improve the s tory when you get back to the office.

18. Success story template
Introduction
Opening sentence that grabs the reader’s attention.
A couple of sentences on Area/site the success story occurred in.
Highlight the uniqueness of the Area/site and the resource concerns
Body
Introduce the person and the issue. Quote them describing the issue.
Ideally, have them recognize the issue was too big to solve without Technical/financial assistance provided by the project.
Describe project implementation using terms the average person will understand. Quote the lead technical Staff on the uniqueness of the project
Frame the planning process as collaboration between the community and project staff.
Describe the benefits of the project to the community in general.

19. Conclusion
Circle back to, or restate your opening sentence and tie it all together.
What was the outcome and what evidence supports that outcome.
Quote the person and/or other affected parties on how they are better off due to the project.

20. Thanks
Thank you for your listening
Good luck!