Voices That Count is a collaborative network of experts and practitioners who use narrative approaches to understand complex realities within organisations or projects. Through our work we generate actionable insights and stimulate collaboration for social impact.
About us
In a complex and interconnected world, we firmly believe that listening to people's experiences, sometimes on a larger scale, is pivotal in generating insights and effective decision-making. Voices That Count believes in the power of stories to see the bigger picture and change systems.
In our projects we always apply a set of core principles:
Embracing personal experiences
Making every voice count
In bringing up individual stories lies power to trigger transformation and to initiate change. We therefore start from how people experience the world and use this to engage in meaningful learning journeys.
We make every voice count equally. Also the voices that are often unheard. We embrace a mosaic of diverse perspectives revealing the bigger picture while understanding the disparities and resonances among (sub)groups.
Making visible what's hidden beneath the surface
Understanding the ‘hard-to-measure’
The way societies are shaped is dependent on how people understand and perceive the world. We strive to investigate and uncover the hidden values and dynamics that drive people's own realities and bigger systems.
Through narrative inquiries, in which people interpret their own experiences, we delve into critical facets of the system that are challenging to grasp.
This is how we engage with our clients:
We build on existing teams or organisational dynamics. Customisation is our strength.
We start from the knowledge already present in teams, and fully engage in co-creation with all the relevant stakeholders involved. With a hands-on ‘learning by doing approach’.
We invite the people we work with to tap into their inquisitiveness, embrace the unknowns and allow themselves to be surprised.
We go for inquiry and sensemaking processes that connect people. The projects we embark on have always an intrinsic outcome of strengthening relationships between team members or connecting stakeholders within a given network.
Read about what we can do for your organisation or network here
Our story
Founded in 2018, Voices That Count combines many years of professional experience from all its members.
The initiators, Steff, Claudia and Nele, share a common past at the NGO Rikolto where they could experiment with ways of measuring the impact of Rikolto's interventions. The focus was on capturing people's experiences in the agri-food systems. The name 'Voices That Count' was used in one of the projects to include the voice of farmers into the bigger impact story.
Later, Voices That Count became the name of a collaborative network that acquired a legal entity in 2021: we purposely opted for a cooperative enterprise to put collaboration at the centre and to anchor our social mission in our operations.
Since then, new encounters and collaborations have emerged. Based on a common vision and shared basic values, Voices That Count has since grown into a passionate network of experts from various countries.
Get in touch
Write us at contact@voicesthatcount.net
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