Storytelling Guide for Landscape Projects
By: Alexander Watson
Tags: Forest, Environment, Conservation, Mapping, Storytelling

Storytelling Guide for Landscape Projects

Do not tell a story about your project. Tell a story through your project.

Successful landscape communicators do not tell stories about their projects. They tell the stories through their projects. They show the project work and achievements, and the impact on the lives of people, the beauty of nature.

Introduction

This is a preview to the full 57 pages “Storytelling Guide for Landscape Projects” you can download at the following link:

https://mailchi.mp/openforests/free-storytelling-guide

For more than eight years as an organization, OpenForests has supported forestry and conservation projects from around the world in mapping and documenting their forest information. The information is used by the projects to enable better project management and foster greater transparency around progress and impact.

For this, we provide mobile apps, drones, satellite imagery, and build web-based Forest Information Systems and interactive map portals to record the project activities and progress. With these new methods of gathering and documenting information, we have assisted projects in presenting a true representation of their achievements and failures.

We realized that projects needed a more developed communication tool to enable them to transparently present their data, information, and, above all, their stories to a wide audience. To this end, we developed explorer.land.

Every project we have worked with has a unique story to tell. However, so many projects invest little effort in communicating it very well. Considering the power of storytelling and its potential for cultural change, it’s a pity that only a fraction of these wonderful and engaging project stories reach their audience. Or if they do, it is usually through a static PDF report delivered once a quarter. Landscape restoration projects, however, are far from static. They are dynamic by nature (literally!), and so too should their communication.

With this storytelling guide, we want to inspire communicators of landscape projects to tell their story in a more dynamic way, using maps, data, photos and imagery, video, timelines, biographies to name a few!

Every forest landscape project has a great story worth sharing with the world. And every organization can grow their following and impact.

Who is it for?

This guide is not for those looking for a fast track to success! It is a guide for those who are willing to make a considerable time investment to make a change.

If you are responsible for one of the following activities:

Communication of project activities, e.g. stories about people, nature, the project successes, and failures, the real story;

The conception of the communication strategies for your organization and landscape project;

Caring for the relationships with stakeholders, donors, investors, buyers of forest products, and the public;

then this storytelling guide is for you!

What will you learn?

You will learn

to do permission marketing instead of interrupting prospect clients;

to focus on high-quality content and to find your own unique story;

to use the right framing to make the change you want;

to craft copy that speaks to all stakeholders, across many different groups, to get them on board to your vision of change;

to understand how to bridge the distance between projects and supporters with the help of digital media;

That successful communication requires you to be sensitive to the cultural codes of your audience;

that it takes time and effort to build relationships, however, and that it is worth doing so;

that most efficient marketing and communication have to be built around key personnel;

that issuance of carbon credits, and achievements of certification standards alone, do not make a good story;

what determines how your organization and project is perceived by the public;

how transparency can become a competitive advantage;

that active storytelling requires focus and commitment;

how to create a dynamic story setting, allowing your audience to freely explore your project story;

how interactive web maps can create context and connect story elements;

what forms of digital media are available to support your story; and

that storytelling has an ethical responsibility.

The purpose of this guide is to provide background information and inspiration that will help any communicator of landscape projects not only reach the right audience but enthrall and engage them.