I first encountered the terms historicity and historiography as an undergraduate studying biblical criticism. Like many students cracking open ancient texts for the first time, I was struck by how much of the Bible’s power — and controversy — comes not just from what it says but from how its story is told and retold. Is the account rooted in fact (historicity), or is it shaped by the way people have interpreted, recorded and passed it along (historiography)?

At the time, these were tools for textual analysis, but years later I see the same dynamic playing out in real time in the nonprofit sector — across boardrooms, staff meetings, donor reports and institutional memory.

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In the nonprofit world, especially where mission-driven work and stakeholder relationships are central, narratives carry enormous weight. The version of events that gets remembered is often less about what happened and more about who tells the story, how they tell it and when. It’s less what happened and more how the story of what happened gets codified — and why.

That’s historiography at work.

Staff turnover accelerates this phenomenon. A new executive hears a board chair say, “We tried that five years ago, and it didn’t work.” There may be no documentation of what was tried, how it was implemented or why it failed. The story is what remains. Sometimes it becomes canon.

Donor reports often feature curated successes and sanitized failures. Strategy memos may omit controversy to maintain internal harmony. Minutes from meetings get approved with edits that reflect consensus, not conflict. Over time, the archived version becomes the official one — even if it’s not the full picture.

This is not malicious. It’s human. But it’s consequential.

Without anchoring in historicity — actual records, data, context — organizations risk making decisions based on myths or misremembered lore. An initiative might get dismissed because “we already tried that,” when in reality it was a half-hearted pilot with no follow-through. A funder might be credited for a program’s success when the bulk of impact came from a different stream of support entirely. Leadership transitions can become moments of narrative re-creation, not continuity.

That’s why I’ve come to believe that nonprofits must become better historians of themselves. This doesn’t require becoming academic, but it does require intentionality:

• Audit your narratives: What “everyone knows” may not be accurate. If a story is driving decisions, check it against documentation (or create documentation if it doesn’t exist).
• Distinguish between what happened and how it’s remembered: Capture both — each has value, just don’t confuse one for the other.
• Make room for multiple voices: Historiography is shaped by point of view. The staff’s experience of an initiative might differ from that of the board or the beneficiaries. Include those perspectives when recording history.
• Institutionalize learning: Don’t just evaluate programs: archive the process — the decisions made, the debates had, the reasons behind pivots. Those become the foundation of institutional memory.
• Guard against revisionism in crisis: When mistakes happen, the impulse is to minimize them in public-facing communication; but inside the organization, hold on to the full account. You can’t grow from a lesson you erase.

Studying biblical criticism taught me that truth isn’t just found in facts; rather, it’s shaped by who chooses which facts to highlight, and how. In sacred texts, that realization can shake foundations. In nonprofit leadership, it can strengthen them.

When organizations are aware of how narratives form, they can start to own their stories more fully—and tell them more truthfully. That doesn’t mean airing every dirty detail, but it does mean choosing integrity over image, accuracy over expedience.

The real work isn’t just in doing the mission. It’s in recording it with care, preserving institutional memory and telling stories in ways that respect both historicity and historiography.

Because the stories we tell about ourselves will shape the future we believe is possible.

Avi Olitzky is the president and principal consultant of Olitzky Consulting Group, based in Minneapolis.