StoryLab Pilot Projects

Help CDS create the future of stories

These pilot descriptions are in draft. Our goal for StoryLab is to experiment with new techniques, approaches, delivery systems, and other elements that can deepen and sharpen story power, and to do that in partnership. Every pilot is flexible, open to collaboration and adaptation to fit partners' aims and communities. Specific elements of each pilot—for instance, story-based theater, poster campaigns, radio programs, smartphone apps, and GIS technologies—can be adapted and transferred to others. If you have a different participant focus, issue, technique, or any other adaptation in mind, let’s talk. Contact Joe Lambert at joe@storycenter.org or Arlene Goldbard at arlene@storycenter.org.

With your help, StoryLab will test a series of exciting pilot projects shared through a new online media bank called The Republic of Stories, where you will be able to access thousands of stories from our archive and from seven new projects that use stories to bridge generations, sharing essential knowledge for a livable future:

• The Seven Stages Webinar Series asks how your stories shape your experience, helping you learn from the cycles and stages of your life. Be part of CDS’s first ever webinar series and learn how to apply creative storywork in lifelong learning in diverse fields: community arts, expressive and healing therapies, education, and more. Read more.

• It’s a perpetual challenge for grantmakers and recipients to capture and convey the value of their work. Metrics can help, which is why so much focused attention has gone to finding the best indicators and the best ways to share them. But are more and more refined metrics actually translating into significant improvement in awareness and investment in work for the public good? Albert Einstein said it beautifully: “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” It seems that numbers alone won’t do it. Capturing Value asks, how do we capture the full value of work for the public good? How do we share it with people who can’t experience it directly? The answer has to be story. Read more.

• All Together Now uses two generations’ stories about lifting their voices in community. When did you first step out of silence to share your story about what matters most? CDS’s partners in this pilot will link you to issues and causes that touch your lives and hearts. Read more.

• The Learning Awareness Project asks how many random shootings, hate crimes, and bullying episodes we need before we change the story? Imagine doing it in this generation, with kids learning from their peers how to recognize and release the reactivity built into our brains and bodies. Read more.

• The Desire Paths pilot asks how things would be different if people’s histories, feelings, and connections to the land figured into planning and public decisions. We get hung up on jobs versus environment, when we need both. This pilot builds an interactive map-based repository of wisdom stories for activists, planners, and public bodies, linked to resources for citizen action. Read more.

• We are inspired to act by others like ourselves. How would your organization, company, campus, or community be different if people could instantly access stories like yours as a bridge to their own volunteering and giving? That’s CDS’s SharedTime project. Read more.

• Gender-based violence is often transmitted between generations; change that story and you change the world. Imagine every father teaching his son to respect women. Fathers & Sons, Pathways to Change aims to promote gender equality and end cycles of violence. Read more.

If you'd like more information about partnering with us (or anything else about StoryLab), please contact Joe Lambert (joe@storycenter.org) or Arlene Goldbard (arlene@storycenter.org).