It’s my pleasure to present to you the top 3 candidate organizations/initiatives to receive a free storytelling workshop thanks to the Indiegogo campaign we did back in December/January. It was tough to narrow down the options, but these three really rose to the top! Here they are:

• The American Lung Association exists to save lives by improving lung health and preventing lung disease. We rely on the support of generous sponsors, donors, and volunteers to help fund our mission and make an impact on the 32 million Americans living with lung disease such as asthma, COPD, lung cancer, and other lung diseases. When we gather for events, programs, meetings, or more, the mission is always front and center. The key to connecting people with our mission is through storytelling. On our website you will see stories of Heroes that have been affected by lung disease sharing their WHY. As staff, the way we tell their stories are a very important responsibility. It helps to communicate to others why they should support our organization and see the impact we are making through research, advocacy, and education. A storytelling workshop would be beneficial to our staff to better prepare us to go out into the community to gather more support and to encourage those who continue to support our mission year after year. Thank you for this opportunity!
• Atlanta Legal Aid is a non-profit law firm founded in 1924. The core of our mission is to help low-income people navigate the complexities of the court system at the most vulnerable times in their lives. Legal Aid’s clients face evictions, health crises, foreclosure, domestic violence, education issues and consumer challenges that can only be solved with the help of a lawyer. Much of our work involves litigation. As lawyers, we tend to focus on the law, and often we forget how to tell a compelling story to ensure that our clients are humanized and sympathetic to judges and juries. I think specific training in this area would be a huge benefit to our clients, as arguing the law is really only half the battle. Effective case presentation is paramount, but if often falls by the wayside. We would love it if you could offer a training at our downtown office which has a dedicated training space.
• The #whatshesaidproject is based in Columbia, SC. The goal of this project is to begin and sustain a conversation with women stakeholders in the Columbia area around community issues (public health, barriers to accessing care, reproductive health) through first person storytelling. We use a story slam format to bring women’s voices and stories to a larger audience.  I’m wanting to concretize a relationship with 8-10 folks who are consistently doing the story slams, and offering development opps is a great way to do it!

Voting begins today. You can send in your votes through the contact form on the website, replying to this post, or on Facebook.

May the odds be ever in your favor!