Systems Storytelling Applied Learning
Context Setting
Across contexts and communities, there is a growing recognition that the stories we hold—and how we share them—shape our ability to understand and shift the systems around us. Collective Change Lab (CCL) convened organizations and collectives through three different initiatives: a Community of Practice, the Systems Storytelling Fellowship and the Systems Storytelling Capacity Building Initiative. These initiatives held shared spaces to learn, apply, and advance the practice of systems storytelling in support of systems change.
In 2021, we set off on a journey to discover how storytelling can help us transform social systems. We had a hunch that stories of heroes and super-charged change efforts were not serving the social sector well, and that somehow, the way we were telling stories of change was holding us back from creating real change. We knew that we didn’t have all the answers and set out to find fellow travelers who could help us make sense of what we were seeing. We were joined in a Community of Practice, comprised of a group of ten intrepid storytellers from diverse cultures, geographies and genres. Our journey is ongoing, but gathered our emerging learnings from in a compendium.
The Systems Storytelling Fellowship began in November 2023 and was a two-year, co-created learning journey that brought together collectives to deepen and expand their understanding of how systems change and how storytelling can be used as a transformative practice within those systems.
Throughout the Fellowship, participants learned, built, and reflected on their approaches to transformation through systems storytelling, while also capturing and sharing insights and resources to support their own work, their collectives, and the broader field. Fellows collaboratively contributed to documenting practice-based learnings and co-authored guidance to help advance and share systems storytelling practices more widely.
As part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) SUPER Learning Study, Collective Change Lab partnered with a set of grantee organizations through the Systems Storytelling Capacity Building Initiative, in 2024-25, to explore how systems storytelling can function as both a learning practice and a systems change intervention. Across varied contexts—policy advocacy, economic equity, land justice, and youth research—these initiatives tested how relational, narrative-based practices can surface community wisdom, illuminate power dynamics, and support more coherent, equity-centered systems strategies.
Together, these partnerships contributed practice-based insights to the broader learning study while advancing each organization’s unique systems change goals.
Systems Storytelling Fellowship
“Stories are like individual stars, narratives are constellations of stories, and cultures are like huge, expanding galaxies. Individual stories by themselves cannot drive change, but when they are linked together, they can immerse us in new narratives that can shift culture in profound ways.”- Jeff Chang, Liz Manne and Erin Potts
Click on any constellation point to explore the diverse collectives that form our storytelling community. Each collective brings unique perspectives and approaches to systems storytelling
Collectives in our storytelling community: Casatarantula, Collaborative for Bioregional Action Learning and Transformation, Corporacion Dunna, The Detroit Education Narrative (DEN) Collective, Movement for Community-led Development, The Red Teapot Collective.
Systems Storytelling Capacity Building Initiative
Click on any of the organizations below to learn more from their experience integrating systems storytelling into their work.
Systems Storytelling Community of Practice
Check out our early learnings from systems storytelling in this compendium. Click the image below to open e-zine.
