Our team draws on decades of experience collaborating with organizations, agencies, and schools to design, implement, and facilitate storytelling initiatives. Our unique skill is learning to listen in ways that build trust and elicit stories people want and need to tell. There are many different ways to implement these projects and so many different types of skills and expertise we can employ to help you affect the impact you want.
StoryCollab helps you clarify your project goals. We provide comprehensive support for your organization to identify where story might be most useful to your efforts and help you conceptualize a concrete plan to accomplish your goals.
Consultation to clarify desired outcomes, to assess organizational and community resources, and to identify targeted audiences
Presentation of effective storytelling activities, tools, and workshop options
Design and facilitation of community-based, participatory planning activities
Review of best practices for recruiting a diversity of participants and developing appropriate stories or other media pieces
Thoughtful frameworks for recruiting a diversity of participants to develop engaging stories and other media pieces
Recommendations for equipment and software
Collaboration on writing and reviewing grant proposals to support funding for your initiative
Guidance on relevant institutional review board (IRB) compliance
Development of a story distribution strategy and social media campaigns
In order to meet the unique goals of your organization, we design and implement custom projects. Initiative components may include: digital storytelling, podcasting, story maps, documentary shorts or brand storytelling films, social media campaigns, toolkits, and story screenings with talkbacks to best serve your goals and objectives.
Ourworkshops include:
Transformative and empowering first-person storytelling experiences
In-person, online, and hybrid workshop models, including options for ongoing community-involved workshops
Story-based interviewing strategies to help podcast workshop participants develop engaging content
Collaborative approaches to storytelling, active listening, and media production
Hands-on learning to build multimedia storytelling and editing skills
StoryCollab will help you take advantage of one of the most affordable and fastest-growing ways for your company, school, or nonprofit to share your stories. Podcasting allows your organization or agency to capture and share longer, more complex stories than most traditional digital storytelling methods. The format also allows for longer, serialized storytelling projects and episodes that can respond more immediately to recent events.
Our podcasting workshops help you:
Conceptualize an overall podcast strategy
Incorporate story-based frameworks for content creation
Learn accessible audio editing software tools and techniques
Produce high-quality episodes aligned with your broader objectives
Take advantage of free social media tools to grow and engage your audience
Learn to hire and manage outsourcing for editing services
Develop a style and adopt a format consistent with that strategy
Employ low-cost resources or those you already have on hand
Use narrative interviewing techniques when talking with guests
Publish and distribute your podcast with professional hosting and directory registration
Our podcast production services can include:
General project consultation and management
Advanced audio engineering and mastering
Facilitation of remote guest interviews
Iterative collaborative editing, review, and approval process
StoryCollab will work with your organization to create a story map that can be used in multiple contexts. As part of your outreach to local communities, professionals, researchers, academics, granting organizations, and other stakeholders, you will be able to share these maps by embedding them on an existing webpage or dedicated website. They can be explored individually or used as a focus for group presentations.
Using cutting edge software tools, our team will create transparent, interactive layers overlaying a map of a specific region. Each layer will tell the story of a separate facet of the project theme by including various media elements and different types of data.
The story map may combine the following assets:
Digital stories created in our workshops
Audio clips (historical and contemporary)
Written text and quotes
Video clips from short documentaries
Photographs
Infographics and charts
Story maps offer unique insights into patterns, contexts, and relationships as they apply to individual experiences of community members and the collective group. They stitch together new ways of viewing qualitative and quantitative data to bring to light novel and surprising relationships between demographic and economic factors.
The stories created in our workshops can effect change, especially when presented to groups within a community through our tool kits. Using the stories, we collaboratively develop a customized collection of resources to engage targeted audiences through discussion, reflection, and activities.
Our process for creating the tool kits includes involving the storytellers as the experts on their lived experiences. We also bring in professionals in the fields represented, along with the story workshop facilitators. This participatory practice draws on shared knowledge to create the content. In this way, the roles of storytelling and story listening are elevated to promote positive change.
The integration of a tool kit inyour initiative will:
Activate communities around a particular issue
Promote empathy
Cultivate a deeper awareness and understanding of specific issues
In today's fast-paced digital world, the art of storytelling has transformed. We specialize in the activation of your first-person narratives, helping your organization to connect with audiences on a deeper level through social media and other distribution opportunities.
We focus on three main strategic pillars: Connect. Engage. Inspire.
Audience activation strategy development to exceed both the goals of the project as well as ways we can extend the value of our partnership
Platform strategy identifies the best channels for your stories, ensuring maximum reach and engagement
Content creation to embody your brand’s voice and message for positive impact
Analytics and insights monitor the performance of your stories and continuously refine our approach for optimal impact
The right social and/ordistribution strategy could include the following:
StoryCollab works with faculty, administrators, and students to develop tailored institutional curricula informed by storytelling. We help you integrate our customized instructional modules, courses, and training into your existing curriculum.
Our curriculum development services include:
Comprehensive analysis of existing curricula to identify where storytelling can be effectively integrated or inform existing pedagogy across the institution
Development of custom learning materials and curricula that seamlessly incorporate storytelling methods to enhance learning outcomes, including multimedia resources, course modules, and written materials aligned with the storytelling-centric curriculum
Digital storytelling integration into relevant courses, such as multimedia production, journalism, and digital communication
Collaborative story-driven workshops to train faculty and administrators to effectively integrate storytelling techniques into their teaching practices and course materials
Long-term evaluation and curriculum support for curriculum implementation, monitoring its effectiveness, and adapting it to evolving educational needs and standards
Inclusive storytelling practices that ensure that the custom curriculum embraces diversity and promotes inclusive storytelling practices
Community engagement initiatives for designing programs that involve the local community, encouraging students to apply storytelling skills in real-world contexts
Career development through storytelling to guide students in using storytelling for effective communication in job interviews, networking, and professional presentations
Blending first-person storytelling with documentary film creates powerful and lasting brand storytelling narratives to impact internal and external audiences.
Documentary Filmmaking to bring these stories to life, ensuring production that captivates and engages.
● Streaming Platforms
● Television Broadcasting
● Email Campaigns
● Film Festivals
● Institutional and community
● screenings
To define, identify, and gauge key performance indicators
Social media teasers to drive traffic to the full documentary.
Press Release writing and dissemination
Public Speaking at relevant events and conferences for direct engagement.
Film Screening Events showcase the content for stakeholder audiences to maximize impact.
Members of our team of accomplished speakers and facilitators are available for in-person or online speaking engagements, such as:
INTERACTIVE AND ENGAGING PRESENTATIONS
PANEL DISCUSSIONS
LARGE-SCALE KEYNOTES FROM EXPERTS IN THE FIELD
The Power of First-Person Storytelling in Public Health (University of Minnesota School nonpublic Health)
Media and Information Literacy Skills for Global Digital Citizens (U.S. Department of State's Community College Initiative Program’s Leadership Conference)
First-Year Writing Curriculum in the 21st Century (University of Colorado, Boulder)
Digital Storytelling: Narrative Techniques for Non-narrative Arguments in the first-Year Writing Classroom (National Conference on College Composition and Communication, Indianapolis);
Transgender Patient Experiences (The Arts in Medicine speakers series, University of Colorado, Bioethics and Humanities)
Numerous Adobe-sponsored digital literacy presentations
The Healing Power of Sharing Your Story (Postpartum Support International’s 36th Annual Conference)
Are You Listening? Listening and Empathy, Leadership (Eastman and ETSU College of Business and Technology's IDE Academy Leadership Conference)
Digital Storytelling: Creating Texts for the Humanities, Literature, and the Sciences (Ohio Northern University)
Drawing Your Audience In: Digital Storytelling for Museums (Museum International Community Activators)
Including Digital Storytelling in Museum Exhibitions (2021 International Digital Storytelling Conference)
Tech Innovation Through Storytelling (2023 TxDLA Conference);
Brand Storytelling Purpose-Driven and Brand Film certifications
Digital Marketing Institute Global Industry Advisory Council member (one of only 24 global members out of 300k total global members)
StoryCollab can help you engage a larger, more diverse audience through interactive installations, community screenings, and talk-backs with the storytellers. We will assist you with customized planning and facilitation of unique in- person or online experiences.
We will help organize and publicize events, acquire permissions for use from the storytellers, and format the stories for screenings, installations, and other forms of engagement in settings such as:
Public community story screenings, panels, and media forums
Museum exhibits, library installations, and educational outreach programming
Conferences and symposia
Local speakers’ bureaus
As part of the ETSU Research Corporation, we offer comprehensive research and evaluation services, including:
Community-based participatory research
Evaluation of the impact on storytellers of sharing personal stories
Identification, analysis, and mapping of issues within local contexts
Evaluation of the impact of viewing stories on audiences and communities