Friday, January 30, 2009

Listening Party

Do you know about the Storycorps oral history project? I love it and I can't stop listening. It's too much fun.

Storycorps' mission is to honor and celebrate our lives. Since 2003, they have helped more than 35,000 everyday people share and record life stories. All of the stories are preserved at the Library of Congress and you can listen to them on public radio and the web. It's one of the largest oral history projects of its kind and you can bring it to your community by renting a recording kit or getting them to send a team, which is kind of expensive. It's an amazing community building tool and, as the people at the Grassroots Institute for Fundraising Training keep telling you, community building is fund raising or something like that. I can never stay on topic.

Audio: Lillian Howell, 89, remembers moving from Ohio to Virginia during the Great Depression. Listen

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Michael, thanks for blogging about StoryCorps! We normally partner with local organizations to bring door-to-door teams to communities, but there are other options to conduct StoryCorps interviews. We currently have StoryBooths in New York City and San Francisco and two MobileBooths roaming the country to gather stories. Locations can be found here:
http://www.storycorps.net/record-your-story/locations.
For those that cannot make it to any of these locations, we have resources (including a Teachers' Toolkit) for do-it-yourself interviews: http://www.storycorps.net/diy/.
Hope you add your story to the archives!

Best,
Grace
StoryCorps

Anonymous said...

Hi - I just also wanted to say thanks for mentioning Grassroots Institute for Fundraising Training (GIFT). You're totally right that community building is part of good fundraising. And giving your donors and community a chance to tell their story and to share it with others is a key part of that process. It's said that fundraising is 70% listening.

If folks want more info on GIFT and grassroots fundraising, especially in hard economic times: www.grassrootsfundraising.org.

Best,
Priscilla Hung
Executive Director

Anonymous said...

I just came across this while trying to find lillian Howell. She was my Mom;s best friend. What a beautiful and loving person she is. I do not know for sure that she is still alive, anyway she is still a special person where ever she is.
I will continue to try and find her.
Patricia Kiser
mamies62@yahoo.com