Circle storytelling

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Circle storytelling is the way Logos asks Circles to tell the stories of their winnable issues, mostly through short phone videos. It is set out in Storytelling and Content, a Logos Circle training course from 2026.

The basics

The course gives a Circle story one job: to get viewers to act, by coming to a meetup, joining a Circle or starting one. The stories come from the Circle and the people it works with, told in their own words.

The course argues that a fact has to be memorised while a story does not. In its view a story is understood directly and remembered. It lets people reach the conclusion themselves and moves them emotionally. People who tell the same stories, the course adds, end up on the same side, even if they never meet. By this measure it counts most Circle posts today as reports, which track progress and do a different job from a story.

The report is a set format in the Circles handbook. After each meetup the steward posts an update on the Logos Forum covering the date, place and attendance, the topics discussed and a winnable-issue update. It also records what was learned, what to improve and new ideas. Logos will not approve further funding for a Circle that does not share these updates, and it links funding to how visible a Circle's outcomes are. See Start a Circle.

LAN, the Logos zine, printed the course's argument in its second issue, in October 2026, under the title "From Report to Story". The piece holds that a win which is only reported stays in the town where it happened, while a win told as a story travels. It cites research finding that the anti-globalisation activists of the 2000s "never agreed on a programme, yet they came to tell one story about their own struggle". See Issue 2/From Report to Story.

The four parts

In the course's simplest structure, a story has a character, a challenge, a choice and an outcome. The character is one person or one family, never the community as a whole, and the moment that person chooses to act is what makes a story. Before filming, Circles find out what the challenge is, how long it has lasted, what was tried and what is still not fixed. They write a short outline and leave the choice and outcome open until the people involved describe them.

Report versus story

The course shows the same events told both ways. The report says the Circle met on Saturday, 40 people came and 200 food packs went out. The story follows a woman the course calls Mrs A, who has fed six people on one income since a factory closed. She finds 39 households in the same position, judges a petition too slow, and the Circle runs a food drive. The factory is still closed. The course points out that in the story the person comes before the number, and the open ending leaves the viewer something to do. LAN printed the same example in "From Report to Story".

Formats

The course describes five formats that it says work online, each telling the same four parts.

  • One person's story follows one person through a task, a day or a decision. The course cites Ange Zountchegbe, a content creator from Benin, who posted about one person again and again until the problem was solved. It also cites More Perfect Union, a US non-profit news outlet founded in 2021, whose video opens on one worker in their own workplace.
  • The history of one issue traces how a problem started, then shows who it hurts now. The example is a video by the Kenyan creator Valerie Keter that opens on one strange, concrete detail.
  • Winnable issue highlight shows the Circle carrying out its action, such as a food drive or a clean-up.
  • Steward or activist interview has a steward or activist explain why they started or joined. The example is Salary Transparent Street, a series by Hannah Williams asking strangers what they earn.
  • Quick unscripted interviews put one question to several people. The example is Invisible People, a US non-profit founded by Mark Horvath in 2008 that interviews homeless people.

For Circles that do not film, the course points to a Logos blog post on a clean-up near Liberland. In April 2026 a pop-up Circle removed over 35 bags of waste there, in Apatin, Serbia.

Interviews

The course gives interview advice in a section it shares with consent, which is covered in Consent on camera. Interviewers ask questions that start with why, how or tell me, leave three seconds of silence after each answer and ask for numbers.

The Ibadan Circle used street interviews to choose its first winnable issue, in an exercise it called Community Voices. According to its forum report, four-person teams recorded about 25 interviews on 31 July 2026. Each team had an interviewer, a camera person, a note-taker and a liaison, and worked with phones and microphones. Some residents shared their views but preferred not to be recorded. The report links a video summary posted on X. The Circle went on to choose a sanitation and waste-disposal exercise as its first issue. See Circles/Ibadan and Playbook/Ibadan: Door-to-door waste-disposal campaign and street clean-up.

Filming

The course warns that filming near police or officials can bring trouble. Circles therefore check the local law, film in pairs so one person keeps watch, and send footage to someone they trust before leaving.

The phone is held upright in both hands, or rested on a wall or tripod, and each shot runs for at least ten seconds. Every place and action gets four shots: wide, medium, close and cutaways, which cover the spots where something was cut. The light source sits behind the camera. For sound, the phone goes close to the speaker while the filmer listens on headphones, and after each interview it records a minute of the place's sound.

Editing

After filming, the Circle writes one paragraph naming the four parts. Circle videos run under 60 seconds and open on the person or the problem within three seconds, with no logo or greeting first. The course prefers street words, such as "the clinic charges for water", to office phrases. Every video has captions, in English where people speak another language, and music stays quiet under speech.

Before the ending, the video includes one sentence, in the words of someone from the Circle, on how the story fits what Logos is building, which the course calls a parallel society. Any Logos logo, text or colours on screen follow the design guide at logos.co/design-guide, which offers the marks for download.

The ending and the ask

The course argues that a video ending with the problem solved leaves viewers nothing to do. Circle videos end on what is still not fixed, while also showing what has changed. The ask has two parts. One is a local action with a time and place. The other always includes joining or starting a Circle at logos.co/circles, which now leads to the Logos movement page, and can add sharing the video with a Circle facing the same problem. Circles post the cut on their own accounts and tag @Logos_network on X, which, according to the course, lets Logos send notes and help promote it.

Passing it on

Members retell the story at meetups and send it to Circles with similar problems, and the course says Logos tries to send notes on every tagged video. Before making the next one, Circles check the last against a short list. It covers the four parts, the person before the number, clear sound and captions, plain words, an open ending and no suffering shown for its own sake.

Logos's own articles on the Liberland clean-ups give weight to local publicity. The first reports that local news covered a clean-up after video footage was shared with a local radio station. In the second, from 13 October 2026, a young couple who had seen the posts cleaned up a local creek on their own. That article argues that such publicity opportunities are almost as important as the clean-ups themselves and should never be passed up. See Circles/Liberland.

See also

Sources

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