Founded by Melinda French Gates, Pivotal Ventures accelerates social progress through high-impact investments, philanthropy, partnerships and advocacy. In 2024, Pivotal Ventures founded a new organization, Young Futures, to enhance digital well-being among young people. Pivotal tapped Storytelling for Good to lead a series of cohort training sessions to build communications fluency and capacity for nonprofits who aim to improve youth mental health.
Working closely with the client team, we planned and facilitated a four-month cohort to teach leaders at 10 nonprofits about Strategic Communications, Positioning, Audience Mapping, Storytelling, Messaging, Asset-Based Framing, Media Relations and Thought Leadership, combining interactive presentations with one-on-one office hours for the cohort participants to further practice what they learned. Our exit survey showed unanimous growth in the skills of the leaders, with our cohort voted as the most helpful part of grantees’ Pivotal partnership. This success has led to ongoing work with future Pivotal cohorts.