Isn’t it time for a new story? Innovative approaches to nonprofit storytelling

By Elisa Birnbaum

charityvillage.com

A few weeks ago, I joined a small group of volunteers at the offices of Volunteer Toronto for an intensive three-day workshop. Participants — sent by the organizations with whom they volunteered — were taking part in a digital storytelling initiative with one goal in mind: to tell their story.

A community arts practice where people record a personal narrative to which they add photographs and music to create a two-to-five minute video, digital storytelling has been generating some buzz lately. With content generation a ubiquitous priority these days and with the competition for eyeballs higher than ever, it’s no surprise that organizations are looking for new and innovative ways to tell their stories, or, as in the case with Volunteer Toronto, those of their members.

As a testament to the growing need for forward-thinking storytelling tools and initiatives, a few weeks ago the US-based Center for Digital Storytelling launched their Canadian headquarters in Toronto. “Our mission is to help organizations and communities create story-based programs and share and tell their stories,” explains Rani Sanderson, program coordinator of StoryCentre Canada and the facilitator who ran the Volunteer Toronto workshops.

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