North Carolina Budget & Tax Center partnered with Collective Change Lab to explore systems storytelling as a form of policy research grounded in lived experience. Their initiative sought to elevate community wisdom—particularly from people historically excluded from policy spaces—while remaining accountable to institutional learning, advocacy, and policy development needs. Storytelling was approached not as an anecdote, but as a legitimate way of generating insight about how economic and tax systems are experienced on the ground, what changes North Carolinians actually want to see made, and how policymakers can truly prioritize these needs in North Carolina.

Through a combination of youth-focused policy storytelling and community-based circles in Western North Carolina, the work demonstrated how narrative practices can deepen policy analysis, strengthen political education, and support new framings of wellbeing. A central learning was the importance of cultural authenticity and transparency—clearly naming how stories would be held, interpreted, and used—so that storytelling strengthened trust, agency, and long-term relationship between community members and policy institutions.