Fulcrum Member Exchange
Ethical Storytelling: Inspiring Action While Honoring Dignity
Wednesday, November 11, 2026
12:00 PM to 1:00 PM PT | 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM CT | 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM ET
Featuring Nikki Dutra (she/her/hers)
Senior Director of Brand Strategy & Marketing
Orangewood Foundation
Join the Exchange
Zoom Meeting Link:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88903413541?pwd=0O0mJb772q1zd30srqMBLsTNHsFDDU.1
Meeting ID: 889 0341 3541
Every nonprofit has powerful stories to tell. But are we telling them in ways that honor the people whose lives we share?
Storytelling is one of the most effective tools nonprofits have to educate, advocate, inspire generosity, and demonstrate impact. Yet the pressure to tell emotionally compelling stories can sometimes lead organizations to emphasize hardship over resilience, organizational accomplishments over individual agency, and fundraising outcomes over the dignity of the people they serve.
What if we could tell stories that are both more ethical and more compelling?
Join Fulcrum Nonprofit Leadership for an engaging Member Exchange featuring Nikki Dutra, Senior Director of Brand Strategy & Marketing at Orangewood Foundation, who will share how her organization fundamentally reexamined its approach to storytelling and developed a more intentional, empowering, and ethical model.
Drawing on Orangewood’s experience, Nikki will explore the principles of ethical storytelling and, more importantly, the practical steps involved in putting those principles into action.
Together, we’ll explore:
- Why ethical storytelling matters: How traditional nonprofit storytelling practices can unintentionally diminish the dignity and agency of the people we serve.
- Reframing the narrative: Moving from deficit-based storytelling to strengths-based, person-first approaches that recognize individuals as the drivers of their own stories.
- Consent, trust, and empowerment: Giving individuals meaningful control over how, when, and where their experiences are shared.
- Putting ethics into practice: How Orangewood developed storytelling guidelines, consent processes, participant compensation practices, and staff training.
- Making the shift in your organization: Practical strategies for telling stories that inspire action without sensationalizing hardship or compromising individual dignity.
This will not be simply a presentation. Participants will have opportunities throughout the Exchange to reflect on their own storytelling practices, discuss real-world challenges, and practice reframing stories through an ethical lens.
The goal is not to make nonprofit storytelling less powerful. It is to make it more authentic, more empowering, and ultimately more effective.
Whether you lead an organization, oversee fundraising and communications, or help shape the stories your nonprofit shares, this conversation will challenge you to think differently about whose stories we tell, how we tell them, and who ultimately benefits.
Join us for this important conversation and leave with practical ideas you can put to work immediately.
Fulcrum Member Exchanges bring nonprofit leaders together to explore important leadership challenges, share experiences, and learn from one another through candid, practical conversations.
Fulcrum Nonprofit Leadership
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