(Last week’s article, “Storytelling Builds Empathy” (read it here) was an introduction to Juliet Cutler, and to some questions about storytelling: How can story move a person to awareness, then to action? How do we determine which method will best help convey the story we tell? Juliet has real expertise and experience. I invite you to engage with her post today, and with her books. Thanks, Juliet!)
Storytelling has the power to move people—to deepen understanding, highlight shared experience, build empathy, and shape how we respond to the world around us. In fundraising and awareness work, stories are not simply tools to persuade; they help people see more clearly the realities others face, the causes behind those challenges, and the responses that can make a difference. At their best, stories invite people into relationship—to recognize shared humanity, to consider their role, and to become part of a larger effort toward meaningful change.
In my own work, I am drawn to stories that are often untold—those that reveal lives and experiences that might otherwise remain hidden, or that challenge more familiar narratives focused on what is broken rather than what is possible. I seek to shift that narrative, focusing instead on lived experience, long-term change, and the ways support, when it is thoughtful and sustained, can shape lives and communities over time. I’ve had the opportunity to explore this across many projects as both a writer and an exhibit designer. No matter the form, I’ve found stories can reveal human truths that help people see more clearly what is at stake and why it matters. One place where this approach has taken shape is in my longstanding connection to a very special school in northern Tanzania.
Lessons in Hope: Story as Witness
My connection to the MaaSAE Girls Lutheran Secondary School (MGLSS) began more than 25 years ago, when I served there as a volunteer English teacher. At the time, it was one of the first schools in East Africa dedicated to educating Maasai girls—young women who often face significant barriers to education, including deep poverty, limited access to secondary schooling, and broader cultural and structural constraints on their opportunities. The experience of living and working in Tanzania had a profound impact on me, deepening my understanding of the world and the challenges many communities, and in particular women and girls, face. Over the years, I have remained closely connected to the school and its mission.
Published in September 2025, Lessons in Hope: A New Era for Maasai Women in Tanzania is my second book, following my earlier memoir, Among the Maasai (2019), about my time at the MGLSS. Lessons in Hope began not as a fundraising strategy, but as a request. The executive director of Operation Bootstrap Africa (OBA), the U.S.-based nonprofit organization that supports the school and its scholarship program, approached me about documenting the experiences of graduates. At the outset, we didn’t know exactly what would come of it. I traveled to Tanzania to listen, to ask questions, and to record what these women chose to share.
Very quickly, it became clear that the women wanted to share their stories broadly as a way of showing what their education had made possible. At the same time, their stories pointed to an important lesson: education not only opens doors for individual women, but also prepares them to take on the challenges facing their families and communities. Many spoke about the work that remains, describing a strong desire for greater self-sufficiency and a readiness to expand educational opportunities, strengthen healthcare, empower other women and girls, and improve infrastructure. There was a clear sense of determination—a willingness to roll up their sleeves and address the issues most affecting their communities, often through locally driven solutions.
They often named those who had supported them—teachers, mothers, fathers, grandmothers, aunts, pastors, sponsors, and donors. When they spoke about their own journeys and the rewards and challenges of their work today, they clearly recognized that without the MGLSS and its supporters, their paths would have been much different. Telling their stories was, in many ways, an expression of gratitude—and a quiet recognition that the work is not yet done, and that moving it forward will require all of us to continue working together, with these women leading the way.
I was immediately drawn to these stories and saw their value in deepening understanding among those already connected to the work, as well as those encountering it for the first time. The stories found in Lessons in Hope invite donors to more fully understand the Tanzanian and Maasai context and to see the individuals at the center not only in terms of need, but also as people with their own hopes, ambitions, and agency. In practice, this has helped create new points of connection for those learning about the work, while also deepening engagement among existing supporters and grounding that engagement in a fuller sense of what support makes possible.
Seedtime Acres: Story as Experience
In my work as an exhibit developer, I use storytelling to create interpretive experiences for museums, parks, and cultural institutions. In these settings, storytelling is not only something people read or hear—it is something they move through. Whether walking a trail in a park or wandering through a museum gallery, visitors are learning by being in a place, noticing details, and making connections. Storytelling shifts from narrative to experience, helping people engage more fully with what they are seeing and encountering.
I’m currently working on Seedtime Acres: The Poverty Experience, an immersive museum still in development. Its goal is to help visitors better grasp the realities of global poverty and the conditions many people live in every day. Here, stories are not only told, they are encountered. Visitors move through a series of settings drawn from real places and lived conditions: a crowded urban slum in Kenya, an open-air market in Haiti, a street scene in India, a war-affected village in Iraq. For many visitors, these are places they will never visit firsthand. Storytelling becomes a way of creating proximity. Each space is designed to engage the senses—what people see, hear, and even smell—so that the experience moves beyond description into something more immediate and felt.
The intent is to recreate elements of these environments in ways that support deeper understanding. Poverty is often described through statistics or simplified narratives. In this setting, it becomes more tangible, shaped by systems, circumstances, and daily decisions. Visitors begin to see not only the challenges, but also how they affect people’s daily lives, alongside the resourcefulness, relationships, and resilience within these communities.
The Poverty Experience is not designed to solicit a direct donation at the end of the experience. Its aim is to build understanding that can lead to a different kind of engagement over time. Seedtime Acres works in partnership with nonprofit groups serving in communities around the world, many of them locally led and working alongside U.S.-based partners. These efforts are grounded in long-term, relationship-based approaches—often described as accompaniment—emphasizing listening, trust, and shared work over time rather than short-term interventions. The stories presented throughout the exhibit reflect that approach. They are not about quick fixes or one-time efforts, but about sustained commitment, collaboration, and mutual investment.
In this context, storytelling is not intended to prompt an immediate response, but to reshape how people see the issue. The experience also creates space for reflection, inviting visitors to consider their own lives, the difference between needs and wants, and the ways their choices connect to others around the world. When visitors leave with a clearer understanding of the complexity of poverty—and the kinds of responses it requires—they are more likely to support approaches that are thoughtful, sustained, and rooted in relationship. The experience does not prescribe action, but it helps create the conditions in which meaningful reflection and action can take place.
From Story to Response
Across both writing and exhibit design, the same principle holds: the stories we choose—and the way we invite people to encounter them—shape the kind of response that follows. Some stories are meant to prompt an immediate act. Others are designed to build understanding over time, leading to deeper, more sustained engagement.
In more traditional fundraising settings, this distinction matters. It may mean shifting from stories that emphasize need alone to those that show what becomes possible when that need is addressed—as in Paul’s example last week from Lisa Baumgartner Bonds’ work at Lutheran World Relief changing the narrative from emaciated babies to healthy families. It may mean choosing formats that allow supporters to connect more fully with the work, rather than simply informing them about it. In each case, the goal is not to persuade in the moment, but to help people understand enough to respond in a way that is meaningful and lasting.
The way a story is told also matters. Some stories unfold through slower, more immersive forms—through books, conversations, or experiences that take time to absorb. Others are shared more quickly, reaching wider audiences through digital platforms. Each has its place. The question is not which is better, but which approach best serves the story being told, the audience it seeks to reach, and the kind of response it is meant to invite.
Storytelling, then, is not simply about what we say, but about what we are inviting others to see, to understand, and ultimately to join. When story, medium, and purpose are aligned, storytelling becomes more than a tool for raising awareness—it becomes a way of building trust, strengthening relationships, and supporting the kind of long-term commitment that meaningful, lasting change requires.
Juliet Cutler is an author and exhibit developer based in Atlanta, Georgia. If you are inspired by the stories shared here, her books offer a way to engage more deeply with this work while supporting scholarships for Maasai girls through Operation Bootstrap Africa. They are available wherever books are sold. To learn more, visit www.julietcutler.com.
