Using Personal Stories to Connect | National Democratic Training Committee

About the Course

When talking to voters at their doors or on the phone, do you ever struggle to connect with them? It can be challenging to come up with the right words to respond to the voter’s concerns and engage them in a real conversation.

In this course, you will see three video lessons on crafting personal stories that are responsive to your audiences and their needs. Your trainer, Sara El-Amine, also presents three of her own real-life stories. Through it all, you will learn how to apply a building-block framework to develop your personal stories in the moment (e.g., at a voter’s door when canvassing), how to polish your delivery in any conversation, and how to use feedback effectively. By the end of this course, you will also have two take-away resources that can be downloaded or copied for your personal use.

You will also be asked to complete one short survey at the end of this course. We appreciate your feedback as we work to meet the needs of all learners.

Anticipated Course Time

You can expect to spend approximately 30-60 minutes completing this course and its resources.

Sign up and enroll in this course to begin!

Course Instructor

Sara El-Amine Instructor

Head of Advocacy, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Sara El-Amine is one of the world’s leading experts on grassroots advocacy and organizing. She currently serves as Director of Advocacy at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan’s new organization that’s working to build long-term solutions to some of the world’s most pressing problems, leveraging tech, social impact, engineering, and philanthropy in innovative ways. Previous to joining CZI, she served as Executive Director of OFA, President Obama’s 20-million- person-strong grassroots advocacy arm, and the founding Executive Director of the Change.org Global Foundation. She’s raised over $30 million in funds for causes, trained over 60,000 volunteer leaders and staff, and helped establish organizing models that successfully passed dozens of pieces of state and national legislation.