Storytelling Expertise
Real, Human Stories
I make audio stories that illuminate impact and interconnectedness.
The Approach: I use a relationship-based methodology where storytellers lead the process on their terms. Centering their trust and agency throughout, I create space to uncover the emotional core—sensory details, relationships, stakes, and resolution.
I've refined this method facilitating 500+ storytelling sessions across the United States — with touring national field teams at StoryCorps, and up the Mississippi Flyway migration route as principal collaborator on the National Geographic Explorer project Voices of a Flyway.
Why it Delivers: Relationship-based storytelling is a transformative experience, connecting participants more deeply to each other and to the narratives of their lives. The result? Stories that ring with real emotion and bring the joys, struggles, systems, and solutions in their communities vividly to life.
Field-Tested: Highlights from StoryCorps + Voices of a Flyway
Explore the map to hear:
Community montages from the StoryCorps Mobile Tour
I led StoryCorps' mobile tour field team on a 12-month recording journey across 10 communities. I created these pieces to celebrate local voices at live community events.Excerpts from the Voices of a Flyway podcast
Our team followed spring songbird migration into communities surrounding six endangered ecosystems.
Strategic Campaigns
I build campaigns that pull your audience in, resonate at the gut level, and remind them exactly why they belong in your community.
The Approach: My methodology serves teams across communications, development, institutional research, training, and community and employee engagement. No matter the function, my orientation is the same: it’s all about stakeholder alignment. I pinpoint where your storyteller, audience, and organizational priorities intersect, then build a campaign laser-focused on that intersection—facilitating strategic win-wins that get everyone authentically invested.
I refined this approach as Creative Operations Director for StoryCorps' award-winning branded content division, StoryCorps Studios, directing strategic content development projects for leading mission-aligned partners across healthcare, education, public services, nonprofit, corporate, and municipal sectors. You can hear me present on best practices for ethical storytelling campaigns here: Communications Network Panel: Ethical Storytelling and Narrative Change
Why it Delivers: This approach establishes a shared strategic vision we can move towards while centering our storytellers' experience in ways that celebrate them, affirm their agency, strengthen trust & brand loyalty, and generate singularly powerful, personal stories. The result? Campaigns that hit key objectives with a one-of-a kind voice—humanizing your impact, inspiring action, and staying with audiences long after the campaign ends. See this methodology in action below.
Branded Content: The StoryCorps Studios Portfolio
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connectRN, a startup technology platform that connects nurses to job opportunities & community, was looking for a nationally-recognizable brand partnership to elevate and humanize their brand and reenforce to prospective users that listening to, respecting, and uplifting nurses’ lived experiences is a core value of their business. The result was connectRN’s first ever pop-up activation in Chicago, IL featuring the StoryCorps Studios-led storytelling experience “The Conversation: Nurses Speak Up.” Explore the campaign.
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KIPP Northern California aimed to maximize their 20th Anniversary with a campaign that strengthened pride and affiliation among community members and underscored the schools’ impact for donors. StoryCorps Studios recorded stories of joy, progress, and connection from students, parents, and teachers and produced a set of short-form stories and montage that served as the centerpiece of their 2022 Impact Report, Fundraising Gala, and Fall social + newsletter campaigns. Explore the Impact Report & story collection.
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PBS American Experience wanted to enhance the launch of "The Harvest" and "The Busing Battleground", a set of documentaries on public school desegregation Boston and Mississippi, by offering audiences multiple ways to engage with diverse integration stories alongside the films’ release. For the companion campaign “Pain & Promise: Remembering the Fight for School Integration,” StoryCorps Studios expanded the projects reach and representation by recording 100 additional perspectives nationally and producing 10 uniquely intimate short-form stories that American Experience used to engage audiences across digital & social platforms. Explore the campaign.
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Acadia Pharmaceuticals wanted to create a bilingual public awareness campaign that illuminated the human side of their brand and centered real-life stories of caregivers and patients of Parkinson's disease -- particularly of those living in under-resourced American communities and experiencing some of Parkinson's lesser-publicized symptoms. StoryCorps Studios collaborated with them for the launch of theYours, Truly campaign, producing 12 visualized short-form stories to shine light and reduce stigma around the varying experiences of the disease and treatment. Explore the campaign.
Audience Experiences
I create live events that leave audiences feeling connected, heard, and galvanized.
The Approach: I create interactive experiences that provoke both discovery and belonging — offering multiple ways for event attendees to engage with individual stories and see their community reflected back in diverse formats. I facilitate active participation from the start and always close with actionable opportunities for audience members to stay engaged.
I've refined this approach producing and presenting live Listening Events in dozens of communities across the country, for audiences up to 400 people.
Why it Delivers: Celebrating the uniqueness of their stories and their connection to a larger whole is a viscerally poignant experience for audiences. Holding space in varied formats for both individual expression and shared identity delivers a powerful affirmation. Attendees leave feeling not only seen and valued, but more personally connected to those they experienced the event with—including your organization for facilitating it.
Photography by/courtesy of: Bonnie Zerr, WJCT Public Media | Tony Firriolo, Orlando Health | KCUR & The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art