Storybuilders has recently produced several organizational stories, short videos that capture the core values of an organization, told in multiple voices by staff and/or clients of the organization.

We make these stories by first conducting interviews with a number of the organization's members. We then work with staff at the organization to isolate themes from the interviews, and finally we stitch together relevant audio and images that highlight these themes.

Here's an example, about the college-readiness program GEAR UP.

In the spring of 2008, Storybuilders ran a digital storytelling workshop for Team Mita, a group of youth sexual health educators affiliated with the Southern Jamaica Plain Health Center.

Check out Darisa's story. Like all of the teens at the workshop, Darisa wrote a great story and produced a fun-to-watch video. The story is also a super introduction to the work of Team Mita.

Storybuilders worked with Michael Jacoby Brown, community organizer and author of Building Powerful Community Organizations, to tell the story of Michael's grandmother, Minnie. The events of Minnie's life, her personality, and her beliefs all played an important role in forming Michael's attitudes as a community organizer.

The digital story was a gift from Michael's colleagues at the Jewish Organizing Initiative.

Watch Michael's story...

Storybuilders worked Liana Williams Etheridge, a client of the community-based nonprofit ESAC (Ensuring Stability through Action in our Community), to tell the story of Liana's struggles with subprime mortgage lenders and fight to keep her home.

Liana's story was played at ESAC's annual fundraising event, A Taste of JP, to highlight their Sustainable Homeownership and Foreclosure Prevention program.

In early August, Storybuilders traveled to Washington, DC, to run a two-day digital storytelling "bootcamp" at the Neighborhood Networks conference. In two busy days, ten workshop participants created their own digital stories.

All of the stories were wonderful, and we've highlighted Anna's here, because she did such an AMAZING job of reading her voiceover.

In July and August, Storybuilders ran two digital storytelling workshops for staff at Citizen Schools, a large nonprofit that operates afterschool programs in middle schools in Boston and many other US cities.

In these workshops, campus staff told stories about the connections between their work and personal lives. Citizen Schools hopes to use these stories to show off their staff's brilliance, and to recruit others like them to join the organization.

Storybuilders and the MIT Alumni Association collaborated on an exciting project over MIT's reunion weekend.

First, Storybuilders did a whirlwind training with four undergraduate students, teaching these students (quick studies, all of them!) how to use audio recording equipment and the basics of interviewing. Then, these newly-trained undergrads conducted nineteen interviews of alumni over reunion weekend, asking them to describe their memories of MIT, to discuss what they enjoy about reunion, and to speculate on the challenges that young people will face in the professional world.

For four days in late May and early June 2007, Storybuilders held a train-the-trainer in Roslindale, MA for five employees of the Boston Public Health Commission. The participants had a range of great ideas about how to use digital storytelling in their public health work -- from provider education to community outreach -- and they made some great stories! Look at Peter's Story to see a sample.

This was also the first workshop for new Storybuilders trainer Mia Olivera.

Danielle Martin teamed up with Storybuilders to lead a 3-day workshop at the MIT Museum in late January 2007. The workshop participants -- graduate students from Urban Studies and Planning, History, Science and Technology Studies, and Biology, as well as representatives from the Alumni Association and the MIT Museum -- created stories that will be part of MIT's Museum Without Walls.

Thanks to the very hard work of Danielle Martin at MassIMPACT, with the help of many other devoted volunteers, the Stories for Change website launched on May 27.

It's a fabulous place to watch digital stories, post your own story (a la YouTube), and to find and post teaching materials related to digital storytelling.