Shaping projects collaboratively with the Story+Data Map
Suggested Citation:
Whitcher, Elizabeth. "Shaping projects collaboratively with the Story+Data Map.” Data+Soul Research. [November 11, 2025].
Welcome to an inside look into how a group of changemakers we admire used Data+Soul’s Story+Data Map to welcome partners into collective planning and move forward with alignment in strategy, clarity in next steps for needs assessment and evidence gathering, and renewed energy. Our friends from the Healing Together project share their story of using the map to inform strategic planning, evaluation planning, and needs assessment.
What is the Story+Data Map?
This year, Data+Soul shared one of our favorite tools, the Story+Data Map, with the broader community. The Story+Data Map is a tool for people who want to use data and stories to move towards more equitable, just futures. At its core, the map is a person-centered, assets-framed approach that unites theory of change and data all on one page, and offers a welcome shift away from the traditional logic model to re-center people over programs. In our technical assistance and evidence building work with non-profit organizations, we reach for the Story+Data Map early and often to launch partnerships, develop evaluation plans, and take the first steps to prepare for needs assessments. While Story+Data Mapping can be used as a workbook with a few key decision makers, the power of this tool shines when it is used as a facilitative approach bringing together diverse perspectives. Too often, we hear that strategic planning can be limited to the same familiar group of voices in organizations. We have been excited to see organizations in our networks reach for the tool as a light-lift way to bring more voices into project planning and evaluation design processes.
How have our partners been using the Story+Data Map?
Elizabeth Whitcher, Data+Soul collaborator and former team member, sat down with Amy Torchia and Savannah Williams, co-coordinators of the Healing Together Project of Umbrella, Inc, to talk about how they are using the Story+Data Map in practice. For over five years, the Healing Together Project has brought together organizations across Vermont to support families to heal from domestic violence. Healing Together works to increase access and options for connection and healing and improve community responses for children and parents/caregivers - including non-custodial parents - who have experienced domestic violence. Their work addresses the intersecting experiences of domestic violence and incarceration, and includes parents who access supervised visitation services.
Why did you decide to use the Story+Data Map?
In 2024, Data+Soul shared an early iteration of the Story+Data Map tool to a cohort of 55 organizations working to end domestic violence in communities across the United States. At the time, Amy and Savannah were preparing to co-facilitate a planning session to launch the second iteration of the Healing Together project.
Amy: “We were in the cohort call and [Data+Soul was] offering this tool, and Savannah and I dm-ed each other in the meeting: we should use this in the launch! It just seemed like the absolute right way to tell the story, and [prepare] for both evaluation planning and needs assessment planning… that’s how we saw [the tool] immediately, as being really helpful to our beginning.”
What aspirations did you have?
Launching the second iteration of the Healing Together project was an opportunity to reset, realign, and reenergize. In their decision to use the Story+Data Map during the planning session, the team’s goals were to:
Validate and strengthen alignment. Amy and Savannah saw the planning session as an opportunity to bridge the first and second iterations of the project by creating space for partners to get clear on what would change and continue, keep building community across diverse contexts, and identify areas of alignment. The planning session would “make space to notice where we have similarities: and that is where the fertile ground is.” (Amy)
Prepare for a needs assessment, and refine the evaluation plan. The project had the opportunity to conduct a needs assessment that would guide adjustments to the Healing Together’s strategy. The team planned to use the Story+Data Map to prepare for the needs assessment, and refine the evaluation plan for the second iteration of Healing Together.
What challenges and opportunities existed?
When preparing for the planning session, Amy and Savannah were mindful of the context that partner organizations and team members operate within:
Partners experience competing priorities for their time and energy. It can be easy to feel disconnected when collaborating across organizations that hold many competing commitments.
Amy: “The daily grind is hard for folks, and [Healing Together] is just one small part of what they do: nobody here [partners] is fully funded by this project.. . [so] it’s easy to get lost or forget this really different approach of healing-centered work.”
As coordinators, Amy and Savannah work to combat disconnection by operating with a lot of communication, and creating space to be in community and work together: recognizing that once structures for collaboration are established, they become an asset to return to. The planning session and the Story+Data Map approach was an opportunity to establish a strong foundation as a collective.Being at the frontline of change can feel isolating. Working with individuals who have used violence - including non-custodial or incarcerated parents - has often been made inaccessible in domestic violence work. In its first iteration, Healing Together project partners expanded their capacity to address this critical gap, with the intention of breaking cycles of violence and building the groundwork for intergenerational healing. Now, as the project enters into its second iteration, work with non-custodial parents has become a key piece of the Healing Together approach. Amy and Savannah saw the planning session and the Story+Data Map as an opportunity to bring people together who are advancing these new ways of working, and expand access to points of view across practitioners.
What did your Story+Data Map process look like?
Who was in the room: The planning session brought together all the core staff members of every partner organization funded through the project: direct service staff leadership, and administrative team members, as well as Healing Together’s evaluation partner. The majority of individuals had participated in the first iteration of the Healing Together project.
How the team used the Map to welcome in partner voices: After opening the session by grounding in the purpose statement for the project, Amy and Savannah invited team members to respond to the key questions guiding The Story section of the Story+Data map using flip charts placed around the room.
The Story section of the Story+Data Map with prompting questions
Using sticky notes, team members contributed key components of The Story they wished to uplift to the group. Following the session, Amy and Savannah documented and summarized what was shared.
How the team moved from Story to Data: Using the Story+Data Map, the team brainstormed answers to a critical evidence building question: How will people be closer to their aspirations? How will we know? Emily, the Healing Together project’s evaluation partner, carried the team’s perspectives forward to inform the development of outcome measures and the project’s evaluation plan, marking the first step in an on-going group dialogue about evaluation planning.
Emily: “When we asked attendees, ‘How will people be closer to their aspirations? How will we know?’ Many sticky notes said ‘They will tell us!’ We were moving toward a quantitative and survey evaluation, and while we kept that component, this activity was a good reminder to also maintain interviews with families as part of our evaluation.”
How the team moved from Mapping to Evidence Gathering: Healing Together used insights from the planning session to plan their needs assessment, drawing on the group’s collective knowledge and questions rising from The Story to develop surveys welcoming perspectives from children and families, as well as the broader network of partners.
Amy: “When we were creating those [survey] questions, some of [the story] helped us know what to ask. For instance when partners were saying some of the biggest challenges people were facing were meeting basic needs: we tried to get to that.”
What did you learn and carry forward?
The team moved forward with increased confidence in their alignment and approach. By moving through The Story together, the team bridged the proposal-to-implementation gap: Amy and Savannah left the planning session with the confidence that partners had been able to share their perspective, were aligned in purpose, and that the project proposed for the second iteration of Healing Together was on target to address the shared purpose. The team confirmed this through the needs assessment process that followed.
Savannah: “It was great because a lot of the things that folks were seeing [in The Story] were either what we were planning, or were aligned with what we had seen in needs assessments and voices from the community. It showed us that we were moving in the right direction with this project.”
The team identified what they needed to learn from families. Working through The Story supported the team to identify gaps in their knowledge that could be addressed through the needs assessment.
Amy: “We had a goal of piloting a parent’s curriculum for non-custodial parents. As we looked at [the story] we knew that [non-custodial parents] were in the group [of people we wanted to serve]. But it wasn’t clear exactly what they wanted or needed until we asked them. It made us feel like there were really important questions to ask: to make sure that what we are doing to help people meet their aspirations is actually [what families and partners want].”
Ultimately, the Story+Data Map and needs assessment process informed important pivots that are ensuring the second iteration of Healing Together is guided by families’ voices. One key shift was refinement of the plan to pilot a parenting group with an evidence-based curriculum for non-custodial parents. While developing The Story, team members raised curiosities and uncertainty about the plan based on their understanding of what parents want and need, and their own capacity as staff members. The needs assessment confirmed the team’s understanding of families’ perspectives, and the project was able to pivot away from elements of the initial plan to provide what parents truly need.
Amy + Savannah: “One of the things we thought families needed was a [parenting] group that was curriculum-driven and evidence-based. Our needs assessment showed us that is not actually what they want: they want more of the 1:1 support and resources.”
The team deepened their understanding of system challenges and barriers. The process of building Healing Together’s story collaboratively using the Story+Data Map became a data gathering approach unto itself, consolidating the collective knowledge and perspective across partners.
Amy: “I kept thinking that the knowledge and information we heard from partners [through the story] was in itself a needs assessment: especially the part about what needs to change about systems and what the barriers and challenges are. And then [we found] they [the needs assessment and the story] matched each other, built from each other.”
The growth and alignment of the collective was visible, and the group left energized.
The planning session and the use of the Story+Data Map helped build energy around the launch of the second iteration of Healing Together.
Amy: “Doing [the Map] in person… in an interactive way, moving the sticky notes around… and just using [The Story] questions in diverse groups. I feel like it was an energy booster and a good inspiration moment for everybody.”
Four years after the first iteration of the Healing Together project began, it was apparent to Amy and Savannah how much progress has been made to build the collective strength of partners.
Amy: “Our partners in this project have significantly changed their practice since we started the first Healing Together project. One of our programs opened a new shelter that is completely healing focused. And how they are with children and parents is completely transformed: I don’t think they will ever go back. Being in [the planning session] space, seeing everybody four years later… and ready to go into at least another two years together is really inspirational. To be able to agree mostly on everything we put up on the flipcharts, and not hear concern or dissent.”
How might you use the Story+Data Map in the future?
As the team enters the second year of this iteration of Healing Together, Amy and Savannah are considering returning to The Story with partners: to reground, and check alignment of the project with the team’s collective purpose. Looking ahead, they also see the team’s documentation of The Story as an important resource that could support onboarding new partners in the future.
What are we carrying forward?
As partners share their stories with us, we gather evidence about how the Story+Data Map can support teams to use data and stories to move towards more equitable, just futures. From Healing Together, we saw how:
The Story+Data Map supports centering people over programs. As the first step in a needs assessment, the Map can help teams to interrogate their assumptions and identify strategic pivots to be responsive to what people truly aspire to and need.
The Story is a powerful standalone tool to guide program planning, especially when leveraged to bring voices of people closest to the work together.
When used through a facilitative approach, The Story+Data Map supports building alignment, energy, and community across partners.
Be a part of the Story+Data Mapping story.
Thank you to Amy, Savannah, Emily, and the Healing Together team for bringing the Story+Data Map into action in your work, and sharing your experience with us.
We are always excited to learn about the different ways and contexts in which teams are using the Story+Data Map. If you have used the Map in your work, we would love to hear about it. Share your story with hello@dataplussoul.com You can also connect with us on social media or reach out for a conversation.
Amy Torchia is co-coordinator for the Healing Together Project, and supports child, youth, and family focused advocacy with the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. Learn more about the Network’s work here.
Savannah Williams is co-coordinator for the Healing Together Project, and Operations Director for Umbrella, Inc. Learn more about Umbrella’s work here.
Emily Waterman is a faculty member in developmental psychology at Bennington College. Learn more about her work here.
Elizabeth Whitcher is an evidence building consultant based in the Greater Boston area. Learn more about her work here.