Create a clear, strategic approach to uncovering, capturing, and activating your organisation’s origin story — before important knowledge, values, and momentum disappear beneath the day-to-day pressures of running a nonprofit.
The Origin Story Planning Lab is designed for nonprofits wanting to reconnect with the story, values, and lived experience that shaped who they are today.
You’re in the right place if:
- Your organisation has grown, changed, or evolved and you want to reconnect people to the original purpose
- You’re preparing for a rebrand, anniversary, strategic planning process, leadership transition, or major change
- You know there are powerful stories, lessons, and insights sitting inside the organisation that haven’t been properly gathered
- You want more than polished messaging — you want substance, meaning, and direction
- You need fresh thinking, not another generic communications exercise
- You want clarity around what origin story work could uncover and how it could strengthen your organisation long-term
It’s not right for:
- Organisations wanting a quick marketing campaign without deeper reflection
- Traditional branding exercises disconnected from lived experience
- Teams needing immediate deliverables without time to explore the story properly
What if your history could become one of your greatest strategic assets?
Nonprofits are rarely built from strategy documents alone. They begin because somebody saw a need, felt compelled to respond, and gathered people around a shared purpose.
Over time, those early stories can become buried beneath reporting requirements, operational pressures, restructures, funding cycles, and changing leadership.
But underneath it all, the original DNA is still there.
When organisations revisit their origin story properly, something shifts. People remember why the work matters. Staff reconnect with purpose. Founders feel seen. Newer generations understand the legacy they’re carrying forward. Leadership gains clarity about what deserves protecting and what’s ready to evolve.
This is not nostalgia work. It’s strategic clarity.
The Origin Story Planning Lab helps organisations uncover the patterns, values, strengths, and defining moments that still shape the work today — and use that intelligence to guide the future with more confidence.
“Moya, thank you for your amazing work with us on our origin story and Living My Way’s 30th anniversary souvenir booklet. Those insights have brought new understanding about our Members and our beginnings that will impact our decisions well into the future.”
— Mark Turley, CEO, Living My Way
The people around your organisation hold intelligence you haven’t fully gathered yet:
- Founders who remember the urgency, risks, and determination of the early years
- Long-term staff carrying stories and patterns that explain how the culture was built
- Clients and community members whose experiences reveal the true impact of the work
- Partners who understand what makes your organisation different
- Emerging leaders trying to carry the mission forward while navigating new realities
The Origin Story Planning Lab helps you decide how to gather that intelligence, what to do with it, and how to turn it into something practical and lasting for your organisation.
What you can expect.
The Origin Story Planning Lab is a focused, intensive working session with Moya to help you develop a clear, thoughtful, and achievable approach to uncovering and activating your organisation’s origin story.
We focus on one thing: helping you understand how origin story work could support your organisation right now — within your real-world constraints of time, budget, people, and capacity.
“Moya has the best instincts of anyone I’ve ever worked with in this space. She gets up to speed really quickly, has fabulous ideas and always takes me to a new space of possibility.”
— Jennifer Cummins, Executive Director, Heiress Films
Together, we work through:
- What you want this work to achieve
- Which stories, people, and moments matter most
- Where the most valuable organisational intelligence is sitting
- What formats or approaches would serve you best
- How this work could support culture, leadership, strategy, funding, communications, or engagement
- What’s realistic, worthwhile, and sustainable for your organisation
You leave with:
A creative concept and the Creative Directions Guide — a clear sense of what’s possible and how to get there.
- A session recording for your team to reference
- Clear next steps with email support on whether to implement yourself, partner with Moya or have it done for you
How the Planning Lab works.
Before the session
Reflect on your organisation’s current challenges, priorities, hopes, and questions through the pre-Lab prompts. Share your responses with Moya so she can bring fresh thinking and strategic insight into the session.
The session – 1.5 hours
Together, we explore the deeper potential sitting inside your organisation’s story. We shape the approach, identify the intelligence worth gathering, and map out the most meaningful and achievable path forward.
After
You now have a clear direction and practical framework for moving ahead — whether you gather the stories internally, work with support, or engage Only Human Stories to lead the process.
The Origin Story Planning Lab
gives you a direction you can act on.
From there, organisations choose one of three paths:
Do It Yourself
Some organisations take the framework and implement the project internally, using the workbook and strategic clarity to guide the process.
Do It With Support
Others work with Moya as a strategic partner and sounding board — drawing on her experience to refine ideas, navigate challenges, and keep the work focused.
Done For You
A small number of organisations engage Only Human Stories to deliver the project end-to-end.
Origin story intelligence can support:
- Brand refreshes and repositioning
- Strategic planning
- Annual reports
- Funding proposals
- Fundraising campaigns
- Staff inductions
- Board presentations
- Advocacy and policy work
- Leadership transitions
- Community engagement
- Communications and storytelling
- Social media and content strategy
- Staff retention and culture-building
- Partnership development
This work doesn’t sit on a shelf. It becomes a touchstone for future decisions, helping organisations move forward without losing the qualities that made them matter in the first place.
“Bonnie’s has grown so much since working with Moya and Only Human Stories. We have found our voice — and it speaks loud and clear to the people we want to reach. We have seen a massive increase in partners, volunteers and sponsors since our origin story re-branding.”
— Tracy Phillips, Executive Officer, Bonnie Support Services
Common Questions
We already know our history. Why would we need origin story work?
Most organisations know fragments of their history. Very few have properly gathered the stories, patterns, values, and lived experiences that explain how the organisation became what it is today.
Origin story work often uncovers forgotten strengths, hidden cultural patterns, defining moments, and practical insights leadership teams have been trying to articulate for years.
This is less about documenting history and more about understanding what still matters now.
Is this just a branding exercise?
No.
Branding may become one outcome of the work, but this process goes much deeper than marketing language or visual identity.
Origin story work can influence strategic planning, staff culture, leadership transitions, fundraising, advocacy, partnerships, onboarding, communications, and decision-making.
The goal is not simply to “tell a better story.” It’s to understand the organisation more clearly.
What kinds of organisations is this best suited to?
The Planning Lab works especially well for nonprofits that are:
- approaching a milestone or anniversary
- experiencing growth or change
- preparing for leadership transition
- considering a rebrand or repositioning
- struggling to articulate what makes them different
- wanting to reconnect staff and stakeholders with purpose
- carrying decades of untapped institutional knowledge
Both small and large nonprofits can benefit from the process.
What if we don’t have time or capacity for a major project right now?
That’s exactly why the Planning Lab exists.
Many nonprofits know there is valuable work to do but aren’t ready to commit to a large-scale project without clarity first.
The Lab helps you understand:
- what’s possible
- what’s realistic
- what level of work would create the most value
- and whether now is the right time to proceed
Sometimes organisations leave with a simple, achievable direction. Sometimes they realise the opportunity is much larger than expected.
What actually comes out of origin story work?
That depends on the organisation and what’s needed most.
The work can lead to:
- brand and messaging clarity
- stronger fundraising narratives
- strategic insights
- cultural renewal
- anniversary campaigns
- documentaries or story archives
- leadership transition support
- induction resources
- annual report content
- advocacy material
- community engagement campaigns
- refreshed positioning and communications
Often, the most valuable outcome is less tangible at first: people reconnecting with why the work matters.
What makes Moya’s approach different?
Moya’s work is grounded in listening deeply before deciding what should be created.
Rather than imposing a framework onto an organisation, the process uncovers the intelligence already sitting inside it — in its people, history, tensions, achievements, and lived experience.
The work is strategic, creative, emotionally intelligent, and highly practical.
It is designed to help nonprofits recognise themselves more clearly before trying to explain themselves to others.
Do we need to be approaching an anniversary for this to be useful?
No.
Anniversaries are often a natural trigger for this work because they create a moment of reflection and attention.
But origin story work is equally valuable during:
- leadership transitions
- mergers or restructures
- rebrands
- strategic planning periods
- funding uncertainty
- rapid growth
- cultural challenges
- succession planning
- community engagement initiatives
Any moment of change is an opportunity to reconnect with the deeper story underneath the work.
What if parts of our history are difficult or complicated?
That’s normal.
Most long-standing nonprofits have experienced conflict, setbacks, changing priorities, difficult decisions, or periods of drift.
Origin story work is not about creating a polished myth. It’s about understanding the real story with honesty and maturity.
Often, the complexity itself contains important wisdom about resilience, values, and how the organisation has evolved.
Who should attend the Planning Lab session?
Usually up to three key people involved in leadership, strategy, communications, culture, or future planning.
That might include:
- CEOs or Executive Directors
- founders
- board members
- communications or fundraising staff
- strategy or culture leads
The mix depends on where the organisation is right now and what conversations need to happen.
Why this approach works
I’m Moya Sayer-Jones. I work with nonprofits to uncover and activate the intelligence already sitting inside their organisations: the stories, values, experiences, and patterns that explain who they are and what makes them different.
For more than 20 years, I’ve specialised in origin story work, milestone moments, leadership transitions, and organisational storytelling.
Again and again, I’ve seen what happens when organisations pause long enough to properly recognise themselves. The work becomes clearer. The culture strengthens. The future becomes easier to navigate.
Origin story work is often surprising — even for the CEOs who commissioned it.
What begins as a search for history becomes something much bigger: evidence of the organisation’s values in action, patterns of resilience, forgotten strengths, and a renewed understanding of what still matters most.
The Origin Story Planning Lab was designed to make this kind of strategic thinking more accessible to nonprofits of different sizes, budgets, and stages of growth.
It helps organisations step back, gather perspective, and imagine what becomes possible when they reconnect with the deeper story underneath the work.
“Moya’s enthusiasm made success possible — she inspired others and energised the project team. Her wealth of experience and expertise was invaluable.”
— Eamon Waterford, CEO, Committee for Sydney (formerly UnitingCare)
“This has been a heartwarming and illuminating process. We’ve discovered many of the things we are most proud of today — and that reflect the same impulses, ambitions and values that created us in the very beginning.”
— Suzanne Colbert AM, CEO, Australian Network on Disability
Investment
Anniversary Planning Lab: from $1750 + GST
Includes:
- One 1.5 hour intensive working session
- Up to 3 people from your organisation
- Session recording
- Creative Directions Guide
Logistics:
- Virtual session via Zoom
- Session Recording provided for your team
This is concentrated access to expertise that typically only comes through full-scale project consulting and delivery — focused on the most important stage: deciding what is worth creating and why.
An Invitation
If your organisation is entering a new chapter, navigating change, or simply feeling disconnected from the original fire that started the work, the Origin Story Planning Lab is where to begin.
You do not need all the answers yet. You simply need the space, guidance, and strategic thinking to uncover what already exists within your story — and use it to shape what comes next.