Impact.
You know it’s important, but how do you make impact when storytelling for business?
In this episode Katie Flamman chats with Chris Lomas from the Charity Hope4.
He shares how being real and relatable on LinkedIn has helped them grow their community. He also emphasises his focus on forming relationships rather than constantly begging for support.
Key Takeaways
- The power of storytelling: By sharing authentic and relatable stories, businesses can create a genuine connection with their audience and rally support for their cause.
- Building relationships: Chris emphasises the importance of building relationships rather than constantly begging for support.
- Connecting people with their own impact: Hope4’s approach focuses on connecting individuals with the direct impact they can make through their support. This strategy not only builds trust but also empowers people to be part of the solution and see the tangible results of their contributions.
Guest Information
Want to find out more about Hope4’s work to help people impacted by poverty, crime, trafficking and conflict – in Moldova and beyond?
Click for more info: hope4.org
Donate: https://donorbox.org/hope4donate
Get in touch here: help@hope4.org
Want to see Chris storytelling on LinkedIn? Follow him here: https://linkedin.com/in/chris-lomas
Your host:
KATIE FLAMMAN (she/her) – Voiceover Artist, Presenter, Announcer, Podcaster, Founder of Storyteller Media.
Website: www.katieflamman.co.uk
Podcast: https://katieflamman.co.uk/the-storytelling-for-business-podcast/
Voiceover services: https://katieflamman.co.uk/voiceover-services/explainer-videos/
Presenting services: https://katieflamman.co.uk/presenting/
Get in touch for a FREE demo read of your script:
Email: katie@katieflamman.co.uk
Phone: +44 (0)1892 249 001
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Transcript
“Hello, welcome to Storytelling for Business, the podcast that helps you build better customer relationships by telling stories your clients want to hear. I’m Katie Flamman, a voiceover artist specializing in corporate storytelling. That means everything from adverts on TV, radio and online to training courses, inspiring company anthems and explainer videos about new products and services.
My clients range from big business to charities, to governments, to NGOs, helping them all to share brand stories and business developments. But why is business storytelling important? What makes a great story?
And how can storytelling create leads for businesses and build lasting client relationships? In this series, I’m exploring those questions with some guests who work in the creative industries and other guests who don’t, but who can still teach us about successful storytelling. At the end of every episode, I’ll summarize my key takeaways.
And at the end of the series, I’ll pull everything together for you. Today’s episode is about impact and how getting your audience involved in the stories you tell can literally be a lifesaver. Chris Lomas is the chairman of Hope4, one of the fastest growing not-for-profit organizations in the world.
And they have offices in the UK and Moldova. Hope4 was one of the first NGOs on the ground in Moldova, providing life-changing support to thousands of women and children flooding across the border from Ukraine when Russia invaded. Chris founded Hope4 with his wife, Zoe, to help orphans and victims of child trafficking.
But their charity does way more than that. And I’m so happy that Chris is here to tell us more. Chris, welcome to the podcast.
Wow, thank you. What an introduction. I’m so happy to be here, Katie.
Thank you for having me.
Well, okay, let’s dive in. What is Hope4?
Hope4 is deliberately vague in as much as when we first came to Moldova, we thought we were going to be Hope4 Moldova. But we soon became aware that Hope4, dare I say as a brand, signals something far greater than just one segment or one country or one aspect of anything in that country. And that really we’ve become Hope4 whatever we need to be, whether that’s Hope4 victims, orphans, widows, it’s whatever the imagination thinks it can be.
That’s kind of beautiful and stressful because it seems to me that whatever comes up, you’re there to kind of deal with it.
Yeah.
Tell us about Moldova, the headlines of Moldova, its issues, just because some people might not even kind of have a very clear idea of where Moldova is.
You know, there’s a board game in the UK called Where is Moldova, right? And it’s this geography board game. Oh, the irony, because we travel a lot, particularly from a fundraising piece.
You know, we were in the US a while back and I’d have constant conversations, hey, we’re from Moldova and the glazed look. And in fact, that the ones that make me smile most are those that assume they know where it is and say, is that near Hampshire or something like that. And so…
No, exactly. So when I say to them, okay, we’re surrounded on three sides with Ukraine. They get it.
It’s Europe’s poorest country. It competes ironically with Ukraine for that title, but it’s Europe’s poorest country. It suffers 80% poverty.
Its current inflation rate is around 32% and fuel has gone up by more than 600%. So people without before have even less now. And in fact, recently we learned of several people who had lost their lives simply because they can’t afford to put fuel on the fire.
Just to heat our home, it’s gone from around 4 pound 50 a day to 25 pounds a day. That is unsustainable. And so people have got a choice this winter.
They eat it, winters by the way, can get to as low as minus 20, minus 30 degrees centigrade. They have a choice. They either freeze or they starve or both.
And so we are on a race against time. We’ve deliberately, I mean, we can’t do everything, but we’ve deliberately positioned ourselves as people that will fight poverty, human trafficking and support refugees. And this is why the support of the international community is critical in saving lives.
Tell us how it began.
My goodness. So our why, our why gets me even now. And so I was running a successful printer business selling sustainable print services, but to the office sector.
So you can imagine the negative impact that COVID had on my organization because offices empties while our costs still continue, but our profits plummeted. And so it was tough. And anyway, I was working and I heard Zoe begin to sob.
And so I went downstairs and asked her what the matter was. And she explained, Zoe’s Romanian and Zoe present company accepted is the nicest human being I’ve ever met. And I just happened to be married to her.
She’s an extraordinary human. You know, in all the time we’ve been married, this is gonna sound crazy and perhaps even boring. We’ve never argued because I live with love and that’s how it manifests every single day.
So she’s gentle, she’s kind. And I heard her crying. And I asked her what was wrong.
And she said that she’d just read in the Romanian news in a region that she grew up in called Yash, which ironically is just across the border from Moldova. She read that during a three month period during COVID, that 74 moms checked into a maternity hospital, gave birth and then snuck out without their babies because of that chick poverty. And it caused her to cry.
And of course, when she said that, it caused me to cry as well and it still does. The idea that people in a moment of desperation did what to us seems the unthinkable and yet people that are so convinced that they can offer nothing to this baby, not through selfishness, but through desperation, but that was our why. And she famously said to me, I wanna move to Moldova.
So she’d just come back from helping orphans. And if she was sat right next to me, yeah, she do. And if she was sat next to me, she would complete the sentence because I said over my dead body.
And because I had no call and no desire to come to Moldova until that moment. When I realized that, you know, I have an opportunity, you know, I’m 52, I don’t act like it, but I’m 52 and I thought, you know, I’ve got an opportunity while there’s breath in my body to make a difference. And I didn’t know what it looked like.
We, because of COVID, you know, our finances had been decimated and I’d attempted to sell the company and it looked as if it was successful, but it failed in the end. So we literally moved with nothing. So we used the last of our savings to get some of our furniture across and moved into this house.
And that was to look after some orphans, but we weren’t allowed to immediately look after some orphans because we had to go through the residency process and different things. So during that period, I got busy. So I bought, and this kind of goes back to the original point, I bought entrepreneurial tenacity.
So I bought that kind of business tenacity and that entrepreneurial flair into the NGO sector. And rather than sit around waiting, we got busy. We started to reach out and to use LinkedIn, particularly as a way of communicating what we were doing and sharing with the world.
And that’s the funny thing, during the first 12 months, the world wasn’t listening. And I was going through this massive learning curve in terms of who we are as an organization. And so it was important to truly understand who we are and what we do.
And so we have three pillars fighting poverty, human trafficking and supporting refugees. And I started to try and understand what is the common theme between those three. And really I started to think about the body.
And if we understand that our extremities represent human trafficking, poverty, addiction, loneliness, and all those aspects, domestic violence, abuse, trafficking, if I’ve already said that, but they become what we see. And at the heart of it is poverty. And it’s incredible how you can link all of, for example, Moldova’s issues to a diseased heart.
And so rather than simply focus on what we see, I’m going after the heart, because I believe by doing that, we can start to impact the obvious things about the things that we deal with over here. Does that make sense?
Yeah, it does completely. And there’s lots to unpick there, but what you said about knowing who we are, I think that’s relevant to any business, because whatever message you’re trying to get across, whatever you’re trying to achieve, it’s got to come from a place of self-knowledge and authenticity. And I think it’s, I mean, that your authenticity comes across hugely in the broadcast that you do on LinkedIn, but knowing what the company stands for, do you think there’s any kind of differentiation between what Chris Lomas’ values are and what Hope4’s values are?
Is there any difference or are you one and the same?
I would say one of the same. For us, it’s all about love. And I talk about oranges quite a lot because I get to speak in different places now.
And I always take an orange with me with an orange squeezer. And I talk about how we’re all squeezed. Pressure is always applied.
And I typically will get a child up to help me demonstrate. And I’ll ask them, if I squeeze this orange, what’s going to come out? And they look at me really confused and say, orange juice or soup portacali as they call it.
And I say, well, what if I really squeeze it hard, what’s going to come out? And they say, soup portacali. And I say, well, that’s right.
And so we demonstrate it. We press it really, really hard and squeeze it really, really hard. And sure enough, what comes out is orange juice.
And then I challenge those in the room. What comes out of you when you’re squeezed? You know, we don’t do what we do to impress people.
We do it because it’s the right thing to do. And whenever I’m under pressure and whenever I’m being squeezed, I have to make sure what comes out of me is what underpins everything we do, which is love.
So let’s talk about how you communicate that message. This podcast is about storytelling for business and the stories you’re telling are, they’re heartbreaking, they’re powerful and they’re really from the heart. And you’ve really developed personally as a storyteller over this time because your messages are really life or death, aren’t they, a lot of the time?
And do you know what, Katie, when I read your email in preparation for this, I was kind of humbled because I don’t see myself as a storyteller. I certainly haven’t set out and I don’t wake up every morning thinking, right, I’m gonna tell a bunch of stories. I tell you what, I’ve had to learn something.
And there was a brilliant lady in Dubai who contacted me to say, for goodness sake, stop what you’re doing. And I hadn’t realized, but because of my lack of experience within the charity sector, that I became that typical charity that wanted to shame everyone into doing something. And I would show you pictures of orphans pictures of hungry people and pictures of desperation and say, well, what are you going to do about it?
And I had to soon realize that that doesn’t work. It’s still the way a lot of the big guys do it. And I’d love to just touch on the big guys and what differentiates us as an organization.
But we’ve all sat there with our dinner and just about to tuck into our, you know, mash and peas and they show a picture of an emaciated child and really guilt people into responding and are successful in doing that. But this person contacted me and said, look, you know, that isn’t the way you should do it because people love what you’re doing. They love you and Zoe and they will donate because they love you.
So, and my sister was a critic as well. My sister in America, she was like, oh my goodness, you make me feel guilty every time I open your posts. And that wasn’t what I was trying to do because that was just a lack of education, a lack of understanding in terms of the journey we were on.
It was conceived from a place of love. It was conceived from a good place because I don’t profit. Zoe and I don’t pay ourselves a salary.
So I’m not profiting from anything. We take what we’re given and immediately translate it into tangible aid. So I had to, and it was about, I don’t know, eight months ago that I had to switch.
And so I started to tell stories. I started to report.
Can you share one of them now?
Can we talk about Doyna? Doyna, just two days ago, we visited her. She is the victim of domestic violence.
She started when she was 15. She was with the same man. He started to physically abuse her from the age of 15.
She’s now 23. So for eight years she was, and we’ve seen the bruises on her faces. And she has three beautiful children.
I think it’s six, four and one and a half. And beautiful, beautiful family. She herself is timid.
She’s just a baby herself. A call had been come to us. This person’s in distress.
They’re in need. So we went to this temporary house. Katie, I can’t even convey how small it was.
It was so small that when I took the recording, it required people to leave the room. So it was just me and this family because-
So it’s one tiny room.
Yeah, I couldn’t extend my hand with people there. It was that small. And she has nothing.
She has nothing. This brave young lady has made the decision that she is going to leave this guy. I said to her, first and foremost, not all men are like this, but we’re here to protect you.
We’re here to support you. She has to leave this house in two to three weeks. And so when I conveyed in this, I’m just presenting the facts now.
I’m not demanding something from the audience. I’m not saying, okay, this is what I want you to do. Now it’s an invitation.
And you probably recall from the video, I said, I invite you to be a part of this solution here. And her needs are vast. You know, we need to protect her.
We need to protect the children. We need to get them into education. We need to obviously get her a house.
This clever man of hers, it took, bought a car and put the loan in her name. And now he’s, he’s has nothing to do with her. He’s been told to stay away.
He can’t hurt her anymore, but her child support gets swallowed up in that loan. So the bank keeps it. So she has no money.
She has no way of supporting herself or her children. Her needs are complex. You know, there’s obviously trauma informed care that we need to provide.
It’s such a desperate situation. And I know all this happened when Hope4’s ambassador, Leah Turner was with you. She was visiting Moldova for the first time.
She’s a LinkedIn influencer and coach. Can you explain the impact of that one video you made?
So the combination of that and the other videos that we’re putting out over the weekend was that we raised 15,000, Leah Turner raised 15,000 pounds from her community, but she was instrumental in raising not only 15,000 today, but instrumental in raising what has been quarter of a million pounds since the war began. And which demonstrates a simple point when people believe in what you’re doing, they will rally around and they will support. And this translates to business as well.
If people are just real and credible and authentic, got friends now across the LinkedIn platform and they’re not trying to sell all the time, they’re just trying to be real and relatable. This will always rely on a community and the community is all about relationships. So I had to realize that I have to form relationships.
We feel over the last two years, we’ve been building our credibility, our transparency, our authenticity. And to a point now where I don’t feel the need to constantly beg people. I just feel the need to enter into relationships and really to use social media in particular, LinkedIn, with the incredible support of brilliant people like you and Leah Turner, to really take people on a journey with us.
LinkedIn has become your main platform for sharing your work, Chris, hasn’t it? You post videos pretty much every day and you’ve created a signature style, which is almost like a mini news report with a distinct sign off. Tell us about that.
Yes, I’ve become known for this sign off, which some people like and some people hate.
Go on, tell us your sign off.
I will update you further. And really it’s just, that again was an accident. On the 24th of February last year, we were having breakfast together, Zoe and I in our house in the north of the country in the process this week of moving to Kishine.
The windows began to shake and it was 9 a.m. Windows began to shake. It was the sound of thunder. It sounded like 4th of July outside the window.
And because it was daytime, we knew it wasn’t fireworks. And we instantly knew that the war had started. And that was the proximity.
You know, we’re just a few kilometers from the border. And it was that moment that our lives changed irrevocably. We haven’t stopped doing what we came over to do.
We’re still fighting poverty and human trafficking, but now we became a humanitarian organization. But here’s the point. Hope4 has actually, its potential is outgrown Moldova even.
So we’re already looking at Hope4 Romania, Hope4 Ukraine, Hope4 Poland, Hope4 USA. You know, when you consider the issues of human trafficking across the world, you know, we’ve got a family in Vegas, in between Vegas and Florida, and those two states have major issues, particularly in the context of Miami, for example, with human trafficking. And honestly, Katie, I just think somewhere, someone along the line is gonna come along and say, I love what you guys are doing.
And so everything I do right now is about being investment ready, is about positioning ourselves to such a degree that when someone comes along and says, Chris, I’ve got a million pounds or 10 million pounds, a hundred million pounds, or even a billion pounds, I know exactly how we can translate that.
So Chris, right now, even though Hope4 has huge ambitions and is growing rapidly, it is still a small charity. So how can you compete with the bigger players? And this is relevant to any small business, I think.
As a small voice in a noisy world, how do you get your message across so that people listen, follow through and take the action you’re asking for?
Oh, do you know, I got goosebumps when she just asked me that question. I think it’s turning up. And people will eventually see your passion.
People will eventually see your credibility and authenticity and value for money. You know, we don’t have the overheads and we, regardless of how we grow, we always want to be able to provide the greatest value for money for those who are investing in us, but also those that we serve. And so I’ve been a small business owner.
You know, I’ve kind of been through those challenges. And honestly, I wish I knew then what I know now, because I think, you know, I’ve been infinitely more, and I use this word lightly, but for the context of this conversation, I’ve been more successful as a charity organization than I was as a business organization, purely because it’s not about shareholders now. It’s about lives.
And you mentioned it before. You know, in fact, one of the questions you asked me in the email was, what gets me up in the morning? It’s because lives depend on me turning up.
So I’ve got one more question for you. We’ve talked about all the amazing and powerful stories that you’ve been telling and the incredible work that you’ve done. What does your story look like for the next five years, Chris?
We want to grow, not because we’re building a brand or a reputation, but we’re building a principle, we’re spreading love. And there is this direct correlation between if we grow, we’re helping more people. And so we want to launch into Romania, Poland, Ukraine.
We want to launch into the US because we believe that, I mean, there’s bigger charities that can do this, but we have to understand there’s a collaboration. And I think we have positioned ourselves in a unique way. And that has been based on two years of hard work, you know, six, seven days a week, 16 hours a day, particularly over the last 12 months of just going the extra mile, being transparent, being relatable, being real, I hope.
And so I want that to grow. You know, I don’t want to be confined to Moldova because we will always be here, but I believe that as we rally support, as people start to look at us and say, okay, my money’s safe, my investment and so on in the US., a friend of mine, Lydia Higgins, made a great statement.
She said to me, so what you’re doing is connecting people with their own impact. And it was just like, yes. And I said to her, you haven’t trademarked that or anything, have you?
Because that’s now become our signal, connecting people with their own impact. That’s it, being able to demonstrate to people how if they trust me with one pound, if they trust me with a cup of coffee, the cost of a coffee, that they can actually see how that is impacting real lives.
Where do you get your passion from? And do you ever wake up in the morning and think, uh-uh, I’m not doing it today?
I struggle, I do not, I’m not a morning person. I get up at 6 a.m. every single day because it’s discipline. You won’t see me this morning, I almost crawled out of bed.
But, and it’s partly because of the long hours that I work. But my passion comes from knowing that every single day I’m saving a life. Every day do I actually prevent someone from dying?
Of course not. But I’m bringing something far more powerful. I’m bringing hope in a hopeless environment, in a hopeless situation.
And that is dangerous because you start giving people hope or they can achieve anything. I come from poverty, I know what it’s like. I can relate to these people.
People think I’m just this smart individual. No, I’m not. I’ve known what it’s like to go hungry.
My parents worked really, really hard, but I’ve known what it’s like. So I’m passionate about people that are relying on me to get out of bed and change their lives forever. But Katie, I can’t do this alone.
I need you, I need Leah, I need everyone listening to this podcast to say, okay, I’m with you because it’s only together we are Hope4.
If you give people hope, they can achieve anything. Wow, what a way to end. Well, Chris Lomas, thank you so, so much.
And just before you go, tell us the website so that people can reach out and donate to Hope4.
Thank you so much. So it’s hope4.org, so hope4.org, and they can search us on social media, we are Hope4.
Chris obviously works in the charity sector, but so much of what he was saying is relevant to all types of businesses. Here are my key takeaways. One, you can’t guilt or shame or bully people into heeding your business calls to action.
They have to want to. And storytelling is a brilliant way to connect with your audience. Two, Chris talked about connecting people with their own impact.
He’s found that by inviting people to get behind his work, they become part of the solution and the story. Three, relationships are the main drivers for business growth and being real, credible and authentic is the best way to develop those relationships. And we’ll be talking more about authenticity in our next episode.
“So for me, it’s all about, this is me. This is, you know, I’m doing the very best I can. I’m just a human and it’s easier to just be me.”
That’s business organisation queen Lizzie Parsons from Start Small Plan Big. Next time Lizzie talks about keeping it real and staying true to herself in good times and bad. Storytelling for Business, Episode 5, Vulnerability, Connect and Reflect is available now.
But this episode is finished. Once again, a big thanks to Chris Lomas from Hope4. He’s always up to something.
So for updates on the charity’s work, check out his LinkedIn videos and give him a follow. And if you’d like to donate or find out more, visit the Hope4 website. All the details are in the show notes.
And mine are too. I’m Katie Flamman. And this is Storytelling for Business.
Until next time, goodbye. Goodbye.”
From Storytelling For Business: Impact: Audience Involvement, 4 Sep 2023
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