The Missing Character

who will step into this role?

You may know the Samuel Beckett play Waiting for Godot (For theatre buffs, Keanu Reeves is currently starring in a New York performance of Beckett’s famous work and you can read a review here). The play centres around two characters waiting endlessly for someone who never arrives. Godot never appears, yet his absence gives the play its entire shape. The missing character is the one who holds everything together.

It struck me recently that organisations often forget this. We work hard to tell a complete story, what we have achieved, who we have helped, where we are going next. But in doing so, we sometimes close the story off. We leave no space for the person on the other side of the conversation to step in. In our portray of perfection, we risk leaving our audience feeling as though there is no part for them to play.

Now in the charity that Carl Beech and I recently founded (see here for details), we definitely don’t have that issue. We are far too small to pretend that everything is perfect! But as organisations grow, the temptation can be to give the impression that the jigsaw is complete.

The truth is that the most powerful stories are incomplete. They contain a gap, an absence, a missing character that the listener instinctively feels invited to become.

Think about it in leadership terms. When we describe our strategy as already locked down, our teams nod politely but remain passive. When we instead say, “Here is the problem we have not yet solved, and here is where you come in,” people lean forward. They sense the opening. They begin to see themselves inside the story.

It is the same in fundraising. If a charity says, “We have already done X, Y, and Z,” the donor admires the achievement but may feel like a spectator. But if the charity says, “We cannot finish this story without you,” the donor becomes the missing character, the one who ensures the ending is hopeful rather than tragic. We live in very interesting times in the charity world. In the days of the great philanthropists, Cadbury and Rowntree and the like, government spending totalled about 12% of GDP. At the time of writing this email, government spending is approaching 46% of GDP. So as statutory authorities take more and more share of our national economy, it becomes harder and harder for charitable entities to argue that they deserve their place at the table. After all, if 45% our income is already being spent by the government, how much more do we all have left to give?

But let’s not be pessimistic or negative - we are visionaries who believe deeply that our sector occupies the critical space where governments and markets fail. That’s who we are - the third sector! Yet if we fail to skilfully articulate the role of the donor or volunteer, that critical role remains vacant.

Leaving space in your story is not manipulation. It is honesty. Every worthwhile story of change requires more than one actor. Even Waiting for Godot, a play about endless delay, is a reminder that the absence of a character can be more powerful than the presence of one.

This is exactly why the Start With Your Story workshop includes a highly powerful donor story. It shows how a supporter can bring their story in as the missing character and transform the outcome. Participants often say this is the moment when the lights go on and they see storytelling in a whole new way.

So here is the challenge for leaders this month. When you share your organisation’s story, do not tie up all the loose ends. Leave a deliberate gap. Name the problem still unsolved. Show what is at stake. And then ask, “Who will step into this role?”

Because whether it is a colleague, a volunteer, or a supporter, someone out there is waiting for the cue that it is their turn to walk on stage.

We do not need to tell stories that are already finished. We need to tell stories that invite others to play their part.

That missing character could be closer than you think.

If you would like to explore this further, join me in London for the Start With Your Story workshop at St Martin in the Fields on 13 November. You can reserve your place here.

Finally, Start Bay Strategy Sessions are now bookable on the website - click here for more information.