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STORYCORPS

Founded in 2003 by MacArthur Fellow Dave Isay, the nonprofit organization StoryCorps has given 100,000 Americans the chance to record interviews about their lives, pass wisdom from one generation to the next, and leave a legacy for the future. It is the largest single collection of human voices ever gathered. Participating in StoryCorps couldn’t be easier: You invite a loved one, or anyone else you chose, to one of the StoryCorps recording sites. There you’re met by a trained facilitator, who greets you and explains the interview process. You’re then brought into a quiet recording room and seated across from your interview partner, each of you in front of a microphone. The facilitator hits “record,” and you share a forty-minute conversation. At the end of the session, you walk away with a CD, and a digital file goes to the Library of Congress, where it will be preserved for generations to come. Someday your great-great-great-grandchildren will be able to meet your grandfather, your mother, your best friend, or whomever it is you chose to honor with a StoryCorps interview.

StoryCorps shares edited excerpts of these stories with the world through popular weekly NPR broadcasts, animated shorts, digital platforms, and best-selling books. These powerful stories illustrate our shared humanity and show how much more we share in common than divides us.

Over the past eleven years, StoryCorps has also launched a series of successful national initiatives including:

  • The September 11th Initiative, helping families memorialize the stories of lives lost on September 11, 2001, in partnership with the National September 11 Memorial & Museum at the World Trade Center;
  • The Griot Initiative, now the largest collection of African American voices ever gathered, in collaboration with the future Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History and Culture;
  • The Historias Initiative, the largest collection of Latino stories ever gathered; and
  • The Military Voices Initiative, honoring the stories of post-9/11 service members, veterans and their families.

    • Additionally, the organization recently launched StoryCorpsU (SCU), an interactive, standards-based college-readiness curriculum for high-needs schools that uses StoryCorps content and interviewing techniques to engage the hearts and minds of young people and promote positive student outcomes.

    StoryCorps is working to grow into an enduring national institution that celebrates the dignity, power, and grace that can be heard in the stories we find all around us, and helps us recognize that every life and every story matter equally. In the coming years StoryCorps hopes to touch the lives of every American family.

    Here is an example of a recent StoryCorps radio broadcast.

    Here is an example of a recent animation from StoryCorps’ 9/11 Initiative.

    Last updated: January 22, 2015


    CONTACT


    Blake Zidell
    718-643-9052
    blake@blakezidell.com

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