Global habitat conservation
Audubon Society
Spitfire worked with the Audubon Society (Audubon), which champions native birds and habitat conservation globally, to build its grantees’ storytelling skills. Audubon sought to support bird-based tourism by training bird guides and local business owners on bird conservation advocacy and creating demand for birding experiences. Together with Audubon, we identified areas where grantees struggled with storytelling and created a responsive bilingual training for English- and Spanish-speaking partners from Guatemala, Belize, Paraguay and the Bahamas.
Audubon grantees wanted ways to build a narrative around their data and tailor for their most key audiences and decisionmakers. Spitfire guided training participants through the fundamentals of strategic storytelling – why stories matter, identifying story objectives, choosing an audience and the five basic types of stories. We focused on characters and story structure and held a work session for participants to create and share their own stories. Finally, we discussed how to use stories to enhance grantees’ activities and materials. As a result of our training, Audubon grantees and bird guides learned the basics of storytelling and how to use it to build support for bird conservation.