The Power of Storytelling: How the Best Advocacy Organizations Move Supporters to Action

A note from AdvocacyAI:

Most advocacy organizations rely on education to convert supporters to their cause. It's tempting to think that with the right policy details, research, and statistics, audiences would see the validity of your cause.

Of course, we're a data-focused platform. Every decision we make and the ethos of our platform revolve around the idea that with better data, we can connect audiences to advocacy organizations. But your data is only as powerful as the story you tell with it. 

That is why we spoke with David Rochkind, founder of GROUND. He spent years as a photojournalist covering conflict and crisis for outlets like The New York Times and TIME. Now he helps advocacy organizations turn research into stories that move people. His bottom line: education does not inspire action. Storytelling does.

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Education isn’t persuasion OR storytelling. 

Organizations come prepared with the latest policy analysis, data, statistics, and jargon. Still, they don't include the primary call-to-action until the last second, when most of their audience has tuned out. Educating the audience isn't enough.

In the age of people skimming their feeds, glancing at videos, and only reading headlines, you can't bury the lede! Start with the message you know they care about already. 

David put it clearly. “People don’t take action because you educate them. They act when they feel something.”

Real People. Real Stories

Storytelling taps into emotion, values, and lived experience. Real people telling real stories is powerful and stands out amongst the thousands of other content your audience sees daily.

Stories make abstract policy issues tangible. They connect your mission to the problems people want solved in their communities. Most importantly, they invite people to participate—not as passive listeners.

Common Pitfalls in Advocacy Storytelling

• Over-reliance on scripts: Asking real people to deliver canned lines makes content feel flat and inauthentic.
  
  
• Picking the wrong focus: The phrases you repeat in your policy statements or messaging frameworks are not the most compelling narrative. Neither is the bill number.
  
  
• Education as persuasion: Sharing the facts doesn't automatically lead to action.

How to Build Stories that Drive Action

To truly mobilize supporters, advocacy organizations can:

Example: A clean energy group in Ohio should not lead with infrastructure plans. Lead with the drought that hurt local farms last summer.

2. Tell authentic stories. Elevate real voices whose lived experiences reflect the impact of your work and your audience's interests. Authenticity builds trust.

Example: A healthcare association ran a Facebook ad campaign featuring short clips of veterans who delayed treatment because Medicaid expansion had not yet passed. Their personal stories made a policy debate about funding streams feel like a matter of dignity and survival rather than money and government budgets.

Example: An education advocacy group sent email newsletters spotlighting parents who could not find affordable childcare. Instead of leading with policy language about workforce development tax credits, they showed how the proposed bill would solve the daily crisis of balancing work and family.

Example: An immigration advocacy group created a private Facebook group for supporters who had taken three or more actions in the past six months. Inside, they invited these highly engaged members to help plan lobby days, share personal stories with legislators, and workshop talking points. It felt like involvement, not one-way communication.

Drive Action

When advocacy organizations loosen their grip on the script and focus on human–centered storytelling, mobilization gets a whole lot easier.

Of course, none of that is possible without good data to understand your audience’s motivations, interests, and unique concerns. Use all the data and statistics at your disposal - but start to reframe the narrative from, in David’s words - “here’s what we know” to “here’s why this matters to you”.

When you combine real stories with real strategy, your cause becomes impossible to ignore.

You know who your audience is. AdvocacyAI helps you understand who they are. GROUND helps you turn insights about what drives them into storytelling for impact. 

About David Rochkind

David Rochkind is the Founder and CEO of GROUND, a storytelling studio that helps advocacy organizations create campaigns rooted in human-centered narratives. Before GROUND, he spent a decade as an international photojournalist covering conflict and crisis for outlets like The New York Times and TIME. Today, he leads campaigns that combine data and storytelling to create measurable impact.