Narrative + storytelling for people + organizations in the business of change.
No Lip Service provides services in narrative, storytelling and communications to help people work together on collective solutions to shared problems.
Fiona J. Ramsey
Narrative, Storytelling + Communications
Owner, No Lip Service LLC
Founder, Story-Modeling™
The Narrative Home
Tell Ethical Stories
Tell Useful Stories
Fiona has worked at the intersection of narrative, storytelling and communications for 20 years, with startups, nonprofits and social change organizations using tech for social impact — including crowdfunding, microfinance, the sharing economy, the future of work, the future of care, and the future of organizing.
Fiona’s career in communications began as founding team member and Dir. of Public Relations at Kiva, seeing $100 million loaned in 4 years with zero marketing budget. She was one of the first communications practitioners working with personal storytelling in the digital story economy. Fiona has coached more than 100 founders, CEOs, staff spokespeople and organization members in storytelling, press interviews and public speaking, including group trainings. She has placed stories in top-tier outlets including NYT, WSJ, Glamour, The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Today Show, San Francisco Chronicle, WIRED, FRONTLINE/World and has been published in top-tier publications as a ghostwriter. She offers PR crisis support selectively.
When digital media turned organizational communications toward storytelling — specifically instrumentalized personal storytelling — Fiona developed the theory and method of Story-Modeling™ to address practical and ethical issues of personal storytelling in the digital story economy. In 2025 Fiona launched The Narrative Home — bridging the study and production of stories in the storytelling boom — and Tell Ethical Stories for ethical impact storytelling at nonprofits and social change organizations.
Fiona has a B.A. (Literature, History) from the University of Melbourne, Australia, completed the Ohio State University Project Narrative Summer Institute of 2022, is a certified Narrative 4 Story Exchange facilitator, a member of the International Society for the Study of Narrative and has attended Narrative Matters since 2023. She presented Ethical Storytelling: How to Build a Strong Ethical Storytelling Practice at frankxMontgomery and “... And that’s why I decided to…”: Personal Stories as Scientific Models and Why It Matters at the Narrative Conference of the International Society for the Study of Narrative in 2026.
Fiona is from Melbourne, Australia and lives in Colorado, USA.
Areas of Interest
Instrumentalized storytelling
Ethical storytelling
Literary Darwinism
Organizational storytelling
Narrative cognition
Working Papers
The Invisible, Changing Role of Story in Web 2.0
“… And that’s why I decided to…” Personal Stories as Scientific Models and Why It Matters
The new Dem organizing strategy catching fire
New service gives domestic workers benefits
You, Too, Can Be a Banker to the Poor
The Workers Behind the Workers
New Campaign Tool
Domestic workers have long been underpaid
Sexual Harassment Is Widening the Wage Gap
To The Women Leading The Resistance: I See You
Tech is Helping House Cleaners Get Benefits
Who Will Find the First Silver Unicorn?
Who's Gonna Care?
Framework For Improving Gig Economy Jobs
Housecleaning with Benefits
Cosmopolitan: I was Meryl Streep's "Plus One"
Gig Worker Update
PA Domestic Workers Win a New Bill of Rights
This Pandemic is a "Fork in the Road"
Civil Society in the Age of Civility
How Dorothy Bolden Inspired the NDWA Bill of Rights
Paid to Care
Positioning Low-Income Workers to Succeed
Seizing Our Moment to Right History's Wrongs
Who Cares? Now, All of Us Must
The person who cleans your home deserves benefits
Uganda: A Little Goes A Long Way
Kiva
Ayuda para todas las empleadas domésticas.
The PR Stunt That Turned Into a Real Business
Wefunder campaign to help small businesses
The Future of Work Isn't What People Think It Is
Invisibility, Forced Labor and Domestic Work
What Mayor Parker can do for domestic workers
Care needs to be at the heart of the new economy
Alvin's Guide to Good Business: Kiva
How 'Roma' Reveals the Reality of Domestic Work
Lola Wasn't Alone
Domestic Workers Left Out of the Pandemic Recovery
Care Must Be a Priority in the 2024 Elections
Twelve Companies Commit to Providing "Good Work"
For gig economy workers, rights are at risk
Leveraging apps to build care workers' power
Values
Every person has inherent value.
It matters how you treat people.
Words matter.
Words are not actions.
Be of service.
Your value isn’t proven. It’s not gained or built or earned. You have value in this world and you don’t need to prove it to me.
Results are never an excuse for how you get there.
They’re not “just words”. They are beliefs, communicated. Every word is an expression of what you believe. You matter. So your words do, too.
Do something.
Everything we do is in service of something. Be of service to things that matter.