The facts explain the idea. The stories make it unforgettable.

I’m fortunate to spend much of my time supporting purpose-led founders and social entrepreneurs.

Every year, I hear dozens of pitches from founders looking for funding, support, or their next opportunity. I design programmes that help enterprises prepare for the next stage of growth, and I’ve also sat in rooms where entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to panels of funders and judges.

After hearing hundreds of pitches, one thing keeps becoming clearer:

Facts inform. Stories make people care.

We can all relate to a good story

Stories endure.

The better the story, the longer it tends to endure.

Think about The Odyssey. A story first told thousands of years ago still holds our attention because the details change, but the human experience doesn’t.

The journey. Fear. Loyalty. Temptation. Loss. The desire to get home.

We recognise ourselves in it.

That is the power of a story. It takes an abstract idea and gives it a human face.

This is why storytelling matters, whether you’re a founder raising money, a writer trying to hold someone’s attention, or a professional trying to stand out.

You don’t just need to know your story. You need to know how to tell it.

Stories cut through

Consider Mr Bates vs The Post Office.

The facts of the Post Office scandal had been circulating for years. There were reports, court proceedings, investigations and parliamentary scrutiny.

Yet when the story reached millions of people through television, something changed.

People didn’t just learn what had happened.

They felt what had happened.

They saw individual people lose their livelihoods, their reputations and, in some cases, years of their lives.

The facts explained the scandal.

The stories made it impossible to ignore.

You could find the facts online. What changed public attention was seeing the human cost behind them.

This is something the best communicators understand.

People rarely rally around a spreadsheet.

They rally around what the spreadsheet means for a person.

Use this to your advantage

Start by recognising something you may have overlooked:

Your story is interesting to someone.

You may think your experience is ordinary because you lived it.

Someone else may see courage in it.

If you’re building a company, talk about why you started.

If you’re giving a presentation, show people the problem through the eyes of someone experiencing it.

If you’re applying for a job, don’t just list what you’ve achieved. Show what you learned, what changed, and why it matters.

Facts give people information.

Stories give that information meaning.

Don’t abandon the facts. Use them as the foundation, then bring them to life through the human story behind them.

Because when people remember what you said, they rarely remember every statistic.

They remember what made them feel something.