- The Importance of Empathy
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Key points
- Data works best when it validates lived experience.
- Stories make information emotionally relevant, which helps turn understanding into action.
- Impact reports work better when stakeholders are heroes and data maps their progress.
If you’ve worked in a company setting, you have likely sat in a room where someone presents a slide deck loaded with charts, numbers, and bullet points. The presenter seems prepared, and everyone nods politely. But do you really remember what is shared, and do you really care about the data or act on it? Often, that answer is no
But picture another scenario, where that same data is introduced through the life of one person, such as someone with an obstacle, an underdog position, a turning point, and a victorious outcome. Suddenly, those same dry numbers have a human pulse. You find yourself remembering, caring about, and acting on what you learned
The difference between those two scenarios is captured and demystified in this interview. Drawing from her work helping others to tell stories with data, Sienna Jackson shows us what organizations can learn from entertainment, and how teaching these arts can make complex or uncomfortable data easier for audiences to face. Jackson’s answers follow each question below
Jenny Grant Rankin (JGR): Why is storytelling such a powerful driver of action, and what have you discovered about why facts alone rarely move people?
Sienna Jackson (SJ):Facts provide the framework for understanding, but they rarely provide the impulse for movement. As a strategist who operates at the intersection of “Cause, Capital and Culture,” I have seen that data alone is often treated as abstract. Humans are biologically wired to process information through narrative; when we hear a story, our brains synchronize with the storyteller, bypassing intellectual defenses and activating the empathic centers of the brain
Facts appeal to the analytical mind, which is prone to skepticism and fatigue—especially in today’s information-dense environment. Not to mention that “information” does not necessarily translate to “knowledge” in an era of aggressive disinformation and generative AI slop. Conversely, stories establish emotional relevance, which is the primary catalyst for decision-making
Impact measurement has taught me that the most effective data sets are those that provide the evidence for a narrative that has already won the audience’s heart. It is better to move people by using data to validate their lived experience rather than asking them to calculate their empathy
JGR: You’ve worked on films likeFruitvale Station,The Imitation Game, andLion—stories that crossed cultural lines and shifted public consciousness. What does entertainment get right about storytelling that organizations and educators often get wrong?
SJ:The film industry inherently understands that the “protagonist” is more important than the “program.” I’ve seen firsthand how entertainment prioritizes human vulnerability—the journey, the conflict, and the transformation—over the abstract concepts of the issue itself, which serve as background to the narrative
- The Importance of Empathy
- Take our Empathy Test
- Find a therapist near me
Organizations and educators often get it wrong by prioritizing the output or the process. They lead with the what—the policy, the curriculum, or the technical data—before establishing the who or why. Entertainment succeeds because it uses suspension of disbelief to make the audience identify with someone unlike themselves. Organizations often treat their audience as recipients of information, whereas successful storytelling treats them as witnesses to a life
When nonprofit organizations learn to frame their impact reports, for example, as a human journey—where the stakeholders are the heroes and the data is simply the map of their progress—they stop being viewed as recipients of charity and start being viewed as collaborators and catalysts for change
JGR: How can culture and the arts serve as a bridge, connecting communities, shaping social norms, and making complex or uncomfortable truths more accessible?
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SJ:Culture and the arts act as a neutral ground where the cost of entry is empathy rather than expertise. By building initiatives bridging the arts and activism, I have seen how creative spaces allow people to navigate complex social realities—such as systemic inequality or historical trauma—without feeling overwhelmed by technical jargon or defensiveness about policy
Art provides a safe container for uncomfortable truths. It translates the unfamiliar into something human and accessible. When we produce events that convene diverse stakeholder groups or curate soundtracks that evoke a specific emotional resonance for a film, we are creating a cultural bridge that allows the audience to “try on” a new perspective
Shifting the conversation from a lecture to a creative dialogue makes complex situational and social dynamics accessible and, more importantly, shared. This shared experience is what eventually shifts social norms; you cannot legislate empathy, but you can cultivate it through cultural connection
