What Formula One Can Teach Nonprofits About Storytelling

Sports can teach us a lot about nonprofit storytelling. In this episode, we're looking at two examples of sports using storytelling to reach people and to teach people – two things all nonprofits need to do.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] As a missionary, as a ministry or nonprofit leader, you are doing important work, and a lot of that work just doesn't seem to catch on with the people you're trying to talk to. Is this true? I've experienced it a little bit. You try to tell your story, but people don't seem to get it; or you try to tell your story or they're not interested. Or you're telling your story maybe in a way that they just can't grab hold of.

[00:00:31] I today's episode of the Life and Mission Podcast, we're gonna talk about how two groups that you may have heard of before have dealt with that very same problem.

[00:00:46] Hey, I'm Kay Helm and. This is the Life and Mission Podcast. You may have noticed that sport is not the only business of sports. That's right. I know this is a podcast about nonprofit communications, but sports can teach us a lot. Are you familiar with Formula One racing? All I knew about it was very fast.

[00:01:12] Cars drove around in a city, like they would shut down a city who does that, right? Shut down a city in Europe and race a bunch of cars around this crazy track. Or maybe, you know, we, we know NASCAR here in the US we're, we're familiar with NASCAR and you go in circles and then you're familiar with, IndyCar – also circles, but this whole kind of lots of different curves, right and left and uh, super-fast cars that make a really high pitch noise and a lot of complicated rules. 

Formula One has kind of been a sport for wealthy European males really, honestly, for a long, long time, and they were not unhappy with that. They seemed to like it that way. However, when Formula One got purchased a few years back by a new group they said, you know what, we want to hit the American market. We want more women to watch. How do you do that? How are you gonna talk about a sport that already has competition that is already really well loved in your new market?

[00:02:22] How do you get your stuff in front of people who maybe already have something that's their favorite, who maybe don't understand what you're doing. Isn't that what we are doing a lot of times in our communication? So here's what Formula One did. Okay. They started telling stories. They started producing a documentary series about each season, and this focused not on the racing.

[00:02:55] There's very, very little racing in. It's called the Drive to Survive show. It's on Netflix and there's, there's almost no racing in the actual show. It's all about the drivers, the owners, the drama behind the Formula One racing kind of culture and what goes on. So it's not just about what adjustments are we gonna make on the car.

[00:03:19] Right. It's, it's a lot of other stuff. Okay. Disclaimer. I haven't actually watched it. What I have been watching is its effect, the effect that this series has had on Formula One because all of a sudden, Formula One events are selling out. They are selling out in the United States. Even they're adding more American events.

[00:03:42] The stands are filled with new people, women, younger, a younger crowd is going to see these races. So storytelling has really been the driver behind this change and the popularity now of Formula One racing. 

There's another series that you may have heard of. It's ESPN's 30 for 30 and, um, originally, okay, the name came because it was like a 30th anniversary of ESPN. But these are stories, again, behind the scenes types of things about the people. And, the podcast did a series that I listened to not long ago called "Pink Card."

[00:04:25] It followed these women in Iran who really wanted to go see soccer games. They wanted to go to the National Stadium. Azadi. An Azadi Stadium, by the way means, it means like freedom. I think so. So Freedom Stadium. They wanted to go to the stadium and watch the soccer games because they loved soccer and they wanted to be a part of that experience of being in the stadium watching a game.

[00:04:47] Well, they're not allowed to go. And so this four episodes of a podcast, four hours of storytelling, talks about the experience of these women in their desire to go, their love for soccer, what it does beyond the game, right? And how it, this struggle to go see games in the stadium actually reflects on the control that is being exerted over their lives by the regime and, um, how it, how their everyday lives have changed over the years.

[00:05:21] And they tell that story. So on the surface, it's a story about soccer and women who wanna watch soccer, but underneath, when you get into the story, it's about. Freedom. It's about, , gender equality. It is about, uh, oppression and women struggling and protesting and, um, disguising themselves and being beaten and attacked, and arrested and, and all of these different things. And it's obviously a much deeper, deeper story and it's very, very well told. 

So for us as non-profit communicators, what are the lessons we can learn from these stories? Well first of all, these stories actually have a very clear objective. I know it kind of seems like you took a camera into kind of the backstage area or of, of the racetrack, and you had these, unscripted conversations with, with people, or you know, you kind of followed people around and you got stories.

[00:06:22] No, that's not what happens. That's not how they do this show. They have a very clear objective. They actually have a story they're trying to tell, and the story comes from knowing who their audience is. In the case of Formula One and the Drive to Survive show. They have a very clear and defined audience, and that audience is non diehard F1 fans, which goes against kind of what we kind of think TV is, right?

[00:06:54] You would think that a sport would make content that appeals to people that already love the sport. Do things for your fans. Do things that your fans love. Well, they already do those things. They already love the sport. 

If you're trying to get a new audience, which is basically what we are trying to do as nonprofit communicators, not in all of our communications, but in a lot of our storytelling, we really need to think about the people that are outside our bubble, the people that don't already know about what you do, the people that already they, they don't already know who you are. They don't already know the, the rules of the game, so to speak. So you define that audience. These stories are, this set of stories is for people who don't already know this.

[00:07:47] They don't already know what we do. And if you will create a collection of stories for those people, that's one of the ways that you can bring those people in. You can begin to introduce people to what you do to the, the problem that you solve, to the solution that you offer. The work, the mission, the vision. Who you are and why you're the best one to support and all of that. That's part of the part of uh, bringing them through their, their levels of awareness and increasing their awareness. 

And that's actually what these programs are doing now in the case of the 30 for 30 Pink Card episodes, they're, uh, going beyond the sport to introduce us to the experience of women with these issues that are happening. We hear phrases like gender equality or, human rights abuses, right? Those, those phrases, these are things that we hear, but we don't necessarily know. What it looks like. What is that actually about? What is it like to live underneath that?

[00:08:57] Now in your work, you deal with things like that, you have words that you use in, in your ministry, you have words that you use in your mission that, for our, for our ministry, we use the word, the term capacity building a lot. Well, nobody outside of the nonprofit world knows what capacity building even is. It doesn't mean anything to people. And so we have to find ways to let people know what those things are and, and you may not even use those words. It might even be better if you don't use those words. So you can bring people in. By telling stories that illustrate what that is. Okay. See what, see what that is.

[00:09:41] And you're, you're illustrating the problem through your storytelling, and it's just a really, really powerful way to invite people into your world to pull back the curtain and help them to see what is happening and to give them a way to get involved, you're – it's an invitation. Stories. 

I always say the stories build bridges, stories help us connect.

[00:10:05] They help us to understand really who we are and what we're about. And when you tell stories to the people outside of your bubble and you really shape those stories for those people, it's very inviting to them. And it's not preachy, it's not teachy, it's not salesy. It is a, a, a story. It's just storytelling.

[00:10:29] Who doesn't wanna hear a good story? Tell your stories well, but do understand exactly who you're talking to and exactly how you need to tell that story to bring them in a little closer, a little closer. Each story, a little bit closer, a little more depth. And next thing you know, you're filling the stands.

[00:10:49] You've got fans, you got these people following what you do and helping you do the work. And it's a whole lot better when you have people helping you, and that's one of the ways that you can use storytelling for your work. 

I'm Kay Helm, and this has been the Life and Mission Podcast. Find your voice, tell your story. Change the world.