iSimplify Presentations

Magnify Social Impact Through Presentations

Bring individual stories and talk about your passion

Photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash

Let me start by saying, I believe in the humans behind every great social work. Those humans believed in a cause and made us see what they see and feel exactly how they feel. They repainted our reality and reimagined the world.

I was struggling the last couple of weeks, trying to find digital content on presentations for social good. Let me tell you, the Internet has been cruel and frugal to me. Then I remembered what Austin Kleon said in his book, Keep Going, “I wrote this book because I needed to read it.”, I decided to create that content myself.

What do you imagine when you think of presentations for social good? I imagine people who are passionate and determined. I imagine stories that are impactful and powerful. That’s what I think of when I hear about social impact. That’s what I think we all should think of and, in fact, do when we craft and deliver presentations for social impact.

When you’re preparing for the presentation for social impact, think of it as a small part of your project. You’ll then stop treating it as a sales pitch. Your presentation cannot and should not be bigger and more important than the social cause you’re driving. A true social entrepreneur, as Elena Cresciasaid, should not focus on the size of the platform, rather on the magnitude of their impact.

For Skimmers

• What you bring to the table: Presentations for social good and social impact are unique because they rely on emotions and emotions are unpredictable. Your audience needs to see that you’ve spent time knowing about them and learning about their needs. Don’t you find that thoughtful? Focus on the language and the outcome because they can make or break your presentations. Above all, don’t forget to prepare and prepare before you go out there and make your mark.
• The stories we tell and the stories we’re told: Speak to people from the heart and to their hearts. Show people what’s possible and tell them why they should join you.
• The humans behind the stories: whether you choose a visual, a number, or a blank slide to make a statement, don’t ever leave the people behind them. Presentations are created by humans and for humans.

Are presentations for social impact unique?

It took me a moment to think of an answer to this question. Emotions are and should be part of any presentation because we are presenting to humans and humans are bound to have emotions and feel emotions. What’s a better way to connect with people than speaking to their emotions?

Emotions take up a huge part in presentations that are aimed at creating a social impact. They are filled with stories and driven by passion. To me and so many other people, Mother Teresa was our role model when it comes to presentations for social impact.

“It is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing. It is not how much we give, but how much love is put in the giving.” — Mother Teresa

What challenges does that bring to the table?

Because they are unique and emotional, that itself brings a challenge to the conversation because emotions are unpredictable and they rely on the context. You have to consider so many moving parts while presenting and you will be faced with many challenges. Do you know how to turn these challenges into opportunities?

(1) There’s nothing we want more than for people to see us!

Much like traveling to a new country, you have to do your research. If you don’t know the language, learn a few phrases to get by. Know what should or should not be said in certain situations. Above all, know the ins and outs of the city you’re visiting. There’s nothing worse than landing in a new city and realizing they don’t have an Uber service.

Let me bring you back to the context of presentations for social impact, much like any other presentation, you have to know your audience. Do your research on their background, know where they stand on the issue presented and what they need to know about or want to know about, as Ramz Shalbak said. If you’re presenting to a new group of people, do your research. Different donors have different priorities when is comes to funding projects, for example. Tailor your content to address and meet their expectations. Don’t be default and generic. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to this, as Ramz Shalbak said. Your statistics can come from countries they care about and relate to.

Kareem Hagazi added, create a quick cheat sheet with who’s interested in what. Speak to everyone with the same respect but make sure the message is different for different groups of people.

(2) Remember that one book that kept you up all night?

Language can be something you touch, feel, and imagine. Ever read an amazing book that kept you up all night to finish it? Erika Antoine said it very beautifully, using sensory language can be one of the best ways to elevate and uplift your message. Talk about how it felt, how it smelled, or how it looked. Instead of saying it was a hot day, tell people that you were sweating and out of breath.

Kareem Hagazi talked about the power of sensory language in making people present in the moment and transporting them back into the story. When people are faced with anxiety, they are asked to acknowledge five things they see, touch, hear, smell and taste. This exercise proves that language can ground you and take you from an abstract position to a visual and sensational one.

(3) Tell me the time, don’t build me a clock

It’s hard for people presenting for social good to prove their value, sometimes. However, the outcome is very important. Hence, the call to action should be clear.

I sometimes geek out and get lost in the details that I forget all about the outcome. This metaphor told me everything I needed to know about focusing on the outcome,

“Tell me the time, don’t build me a clock!”

(4) Am I the right speaker? I doubt …

What do you do if you’re not the most charismatic and influential person to represent your social project in front of others? It’s not always easy to talk about things you’re passionate about. In fact, I don’t think public speaking comes naturally to most people. This represents a challenge to a lot of people who are driving social projects.

Elena Crescia thinks that the best thing to do when people are doubting themselves, representing the brand such as founders, is to help them nail down the script, so they can better prepare for the delivery.

(5) Never get tired of preparing for it

If you get really nervous about talking in public, prepare. If you’re meeting a new audience for the first time, prepare. If you’re taking a new approach to your topic, prepare. This applies to all kinds of presentations, including improv. Here are few tips for you from Elena Crescia,

• Spend some time working on the message you’re delivering
• Script the stories, message, statistics that you’d like to present
• Work on your delivery. Things become easier when you are eager to share your message

Most of us didn’t receive professional training, so what do you do? You’re going to get embarrassed? Learn it. Practice it. Go out there and do it, as Mark Lovett said. The more you practice, the more you get better at it, I promise.

Stories that stick

There are two ends to any story being told, the person telling it and the one receiving it. There is a lot of science behind why people are drawn to stories. They are relatable and trustworthy. We’re always eager to listen to them.

Speak to the matters of the heart

My guess is that you’re here because you want to turn people from listeners to advocates. Have you tried connecting with your audience emotionally through stories? People are drawn to presenters that are good storytellers, I heard.

Kareem Hagazi recommends relying on the emotions completely and allowing emotions to speak in your presentation. Allow yourself to speak from the heart. Don’t follow the cookie-cutter approach. Curate a custom-made piece!

Ramz Shalbak believes in a more balanced approach between what’s logical and what’s emotional. In some presentations, you’ll have to play the heart more than the head. Find your balance and what works for you.

Start with why

I’d like to drop the mic here. Forget everything I said and remember this one:

“People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.” — Simon Sinek

I am extremely drawn to passion. Passion and enthusiasm are attractive. Isn’t that why you started your social project? Simply put by Kareem Hagazi, find the purpose and work on it. Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t say he had a plan. He said, “I have a dream”. All he did was share his passion with people, as Tracey Madigan said.

What do you want people to walk away with from your presentation or speech: empathy, happiness, or hope? Look into each part of your presentation and think of how you want people to feel.

Have you heard of the guy who gave a shoe away for every shoe he sold? Blake Mycoskie says, “we’ve always been in business to improve lives”.

Jeez! Is that all it takes for us to do it?

In his podcast (added to my Spotify Playlist), Seth Godin listed three important elements to storytelling:

1. Awareness: your goal should be to inform people of your project
2. Trust: attention itself will not guarantee that people follow your cause. Trust does, which is more scarce and valuable than attention.
3. Tension: once you’ve got them to trust you, you should create a little bit of FOMO — the fear of being left behind. Why is it important for people to follow you and not stay behind?

When you tell your story, write it the way you speak to others. Use short sentences. Use strong verbs. Take short pauses and let things sink in. Acknowledge that it was a lot to take in and that the story you told made their hair move. “It’s like a hug you give people”, Tracey Madigan said. Bring both the challenges and the triumph. Show people that they can thrive, not only survive. Amplify the positive side of the story to empower people and make them go, ‘Jeez! Is that all it takes?’. Show people that there’s a way to success:

“A Syrian refugee boy I know told me that he didn’t hesitate when his life was in imminent danger. He took his high school diploma, and later he told me why. He said, ‘I took my high school diploma because my life depended on it.’” — Melissa Fleming

Call people by their names. Bring individual stories. People can relate to personal stories. Talk about your passion and bring in the emotion early and often in your presentation. If at all possible, bring the people behind those stories and give them a safe place to tell their stories. Make sure they know that they can choose their own boundaries and how much they share. Give them the option to stretch those boundaries as they feel comfortable, as Tracey Madigan said. When people tell their own story, they become the subject of it.

I don’t want to be the person quoting a lot in their article, but seriously, thinking of this quote completely changed the way I write for my articles and storytelling in presentations:

“If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.” — Mother Teresa

Mix it up

Diversify your content. All I can say.

(1) Visuals as real-estate

Even though visuals are not as important as knowing your audience, your slide is one of the most important parts of your presentation real-estate. Think of the emotional reactions that your images will trigger. To have people’s support, you need to have their hearts.

(2) System 1 and System 2: Numbers vs. The people behind them

We want to put everything in terms of numbers to show the magnitude of the work we’ve done or the cause we’re supporting. But numbers are valid to a certain respect and they have to be tied back to the story. The story can then be used to talk about the statistics but what matters the most is the people behind it. We tend to quantify the experience, but what’s more important is the individual stories.

Their names matter and their individual stories matter. Mark Lovett talked about Brian Sokol’s TEDxSanDiego talk on humanizing the refugee crisis. This quote from his talk gave me goosebumps. Spend some time reading it and I guarantee you won’t regret it.

“Statistics exist for a reason. They’re meant to give weight and gravity to crisis, to help us to understand. But how often do we use statistics in order to describe the things or the people that we love? Now let’s say we were in this horrible, horrible parallel universe, a universe in which you had no idea what a puppy is, and I were to explain to you what a puppy is through statistics. So you should know that a puppy has 17 vertebrae in its tail, its shoulder height is roughly 28 cm, and the circumference of its paws is 34.32 mm. Do you now know what a puppy is? Now compare that to just playing with a dog for 30 seconds, or reading the account of a little girl who took her puppy to the park for the very first time, or to the snow. My point is this: that we learn not so much from data or statistics as we do from stories and experiences. And yes, in case you’re wondering, that’s my new puppy.” — Brian Sokol

I will say no more …

Maybe you need to get rid of the numbers altogether! Let’s use presentations to tell people what we want them to remember. As Erika Antoine said, use “sensory souvenirs”. Silence and eye contact are all it takes sometimes.

SickKids, a Toronto-based pediatric hospital and research center, changed the fundraising game. They rebranded through their VS campaign. “VS casts young patients as warriors and their conditions as the enemy. Sick children are athletes and superheroes who stand tall in the faces of their unbelievable challenges. The tone is bold, loud, energetic, and aggressive.” They became a household name. It was so eye-opening, they hooked everyone!

How many of the decisions do you make every day that are logical versus emotional? We tend to think that humans are rational and we rely on academic and intellectual information to help people see what we see and react to it. In reality, most (if not all) of our daily decisions are totally irrational, Erika Antoine said.

You’re curious about this? Read Daniel’s Kahneman’s book, Thinking, Fast and Slow.

Presentations are the humans behind them. Mic-Drop!

What’s more powerful than the presentation is the cause behind it. I cried so much writing this article, for so many reasons. I cried because it’s beautiful to see the world of presentations from a different angle and perspective.

Recommended by my speakers

• Predictably Irrational, by Dan Ariely (Recommended by Mohammed Younus)
• Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel’s Kahneman (Recommended by Tracey Madigan)
• Start with Why, by Simon Sinek (Recommended by Tracey Madigan)
• A Hope More Powerful Than The Sea, by Melissa Fleming (Recommended by Elena Crescia)
• Awake At Night, Podcast by the UN and Melissa Fleming (Recommended by Ramz Shalbak)
• Sincerely, X, Podcast by TED (Recommended by Elena Crescia)

I hope I inspired you to magnify your social impact through presentations. If you like this story, share it with others. Follow my Website, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter for more stories.