Telling Stories Over Stats: The S.E.VEN Film Competition

Derek Newberry — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:48:49 -0400

Stephen J. Gould once called humans "the primates who tell stories." Stories are part of how we transfer culture, they are a device through which we shape our identity and relationship to the world - in the development community, they are a way to get people to act. Stories help connect people emotionally to a cause far better than any mere statistic could, no matter how compelling.

Tell me that there are millions of micro-entrepreneurs without access to credit, and I might not bat an eye - tell me a good story about even one person who was able to lift themselves out of poverty through microfinance, and you've made a personal connection.

You've inspired me to care about your cause by making an abstract statistic real and visceral, now I can put a face to every person that is helped by microfinance. This is the type of connection that helped make microfinance a movement, as a lot of its popularity can be attributed to the stories that get told over and over in the media about microcredit beneficiaries and about the movement's own hero-figure, Muhammed Yunus.

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Telling Stories Over Stats: The S.E.VEN Film Competition