The stories charities tell : An explorative study on the role of stories in charities' internal branding

Abstract: Charities struggle with scarce marketing and branding resources, as do many non-profits, but nevertheless they need to communicate a trustworthy external brand. A strong internal brand is suggested to enhance the external brand and storytelling is addressed as an established tool for internal branding. As charities seem to have a natural asset of corporate stories, we believe storytelling in terms of internal branding is of great use for the charity sector in order to create strong and competitive brands. The aim of this paper is hence to investigate what role storytelling could have on internal branding in the context of the charity industry. To do this, a qualitative case study with four different charities is conducted. A theoretical framework on internal branding and storytelling guides the data collection consisting of several interviews with managers, employees and volunteers. The findings indicate that both founder stories and recent stories play an important role for organizational culture, core values and internal communication. We conclude that storytelling can be strategically implemented in charities’ internal branding as stories have the possibility to embrace and include the entire organization, which is crucial for trustworthy and competitive brands.