Last week’s excellent blog on the importance of storytelling by our colleague Lorna Freeman crystallized a thought I’ve been mulling around. Recently, I attended a golf tournament to raise funds for a great organization called motionball. motionball’s aim is to introduce the next generation of donors, volunteers, and sponsors to the Special Olympics, a global movement dedicated to enriching the lives of people with an intellectual disability through sport.

I will admit that before being invited to the event hosted by our client AIR MILES — the charity’s first and leading corporate donor — I had never heard of motionball and, frankly, hadn’t given the Special Olympics much thought either. But I will now.

Over the course of the day, I met a number of Special Olympians who were helping and challenging tournament participants to various feats of athleticism. (My foursome resorted to bribing the athletes with donations to the Special Olympics to survive.) At the dinner later, there was a cheque presentation (more than $60,000) and an inspiring video about the motionball organization. But that’s not what moved me to want to know more, and do more. It was stories.

Specifically, the stories I heard from one of my golfing partners, an executive at AIR MILES who oversees the company’s philanthropic activities. Over the course of the day, he spoke passionately about the struggles encountered by those with intellectual disabilities, and how the Special Olympics movement brings confidence, friendship, independence and pride to these same people. He talked about the bonds he has formed with some of the athletes that were there that day and their families, and the positive changes he has witnessed in them since they became Special Olympians. It was incredibly powerful. Which brings me to PR.

Stripped down to its base, great PR is about saying things that gets people do what you want them to do. The art, of course, is not just what you say, but how you say it. Last week’s experience reminded me that now — especially now — a good story gets the job done every time.