Listen. Honor. Share Table of Contents
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ANNUAL REPORT 2018 LISTEN. HONOR. SHARE TABLE OF CONTENTS Letters from Leadership................................................3 Dave Isay & Robin Sparkman Gara LaMarche EVERY STORY MATTERS Our Work.............................................................................5 AND EVERY VOICE COUNTS Stories to Remember The StoryCorps Impact Our mission is to preserve and share humanity’s stories in order Capturing the Diversity of Communities Across to build connections between the United States people and create a more just and Crafting and Sharing Powerful Stories compassionate world. Growing Accessibility with Digital Tools Supporters...........................................................................15 Public Funders, Institutions, and Businesses National & Local Partners Producer’s Circle Corps Members Financials ............................................................................22 A Note on Experiencing This Report At the heart of StoryCorps’ mission is making our work as accessible as possible. Throughout this report, we invite you to further explore our content and programs by clicking on the links embedded within this document (that look like this), which will take you to our website and other online platforms. LETTER FROM LEADERSHIP Dear Friends, It’s been another year of focused, hard work at StoryCorps — and otherwise never come face-to-face. We opened One Small Step another challenging period for our country. In last year’s annual hubs in San Antonio; Phoenix; Kansas City, KS/MO; Tampa, report, we wrote to you about a new pilot project bringing FL; Logan, UT; and Birmingham, AL, with support from the people across the political divide into StoryCorps booths. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting. We also started working effort, which we’re calling One Small Step, launched last fall intensively on college campuses. and has become more timely and important by the day. Watching One Small Step evolve over the past year has A 2019 study by political scientists at Louisiana State University been thrilling. Our initial testing proves we have a powerful and the University of Maryland paints this picture of our methodology for decreasing fear and contempt of the other. country today: We’ve felt the thrill of seeing people have the courage to come together, to look one another in the eye and recognize that it’s • 42 percent of people in each party view the opposition as hard to hate up close. “downright evil”; • One in five Republicans and Democrats agree with the Now, we are planning to scale One Small Step, in the hopes of someday convincing the country it’s our patriotic duty to see statement that their political adversaries “lack the traits Photo by Harvey Wang the humanity in people with whom we disagree. One Small Step to be considered fully human”; Dave Isay • 20 percent of Democrats and 16 percent of Republicans feels like the toughest and most important thing we’ve ever think that the country would be better off if large numbers done — but given the stakes in the country, we’re going to give it of the opposition died; and everything we’ve got. • 18 percent of Democrats and 14 percent of Republicans Some other highlights from our work over the past year include: feel violence would be justified if the opposing party wins the 2020 presidential election. • We continued to honor military veterans and their Needless to say, these numbers continue moving in the wrong families through our Military Voices Initiative. This work direction. was celebrated in a rare two-day Google Doodle this past Veterans Day. One Small Step is not an effort to foster civil conversation or • We continued our work serving those facing life- find common ground, but simply to recognize that people threatening illness through our Legacy Initiative, with across the divide are human beings. In doing this, we hope to new resources created this year to support families and find a path by which we can begin to mend the fraying fabric children in grief. of our nation. From slavery in America to Nazi Germany, we’ve • We continued to share a broad diversity of powerful seen the damage that dehumanizing others can do. We know American stories unlike any other media company. This from research that the most primitive parts of our brains are year we produced 57 stories and 11 animations. Photo by Harvey Wang hardwired to divide ourselves into “us” versus “them.” One • We recorded interviews in our recording booths and Robin Sparkman Small Step, and StoryCorps writ large, were built to begin through the StoryCorps App, adding to the largest undoing that wiring. collecting of human voices ever gathered in our archive documenting the wisdom of humanity. In 2018, we began testing our first interviews between strangers across the divide. We recorded our first-ever remote interviews Thank you for your support and belief in our work. — connecting Washington, DC, with Birmingham, Alabama, using state-of- the-art video conferencing technology to re- create the intimacy of a StoryCorps booth for people who might Warmly, Dave Isay, Founder & President Robin Sparkman, CEO 3 LETTER FROM THE BOARD CHAIR Dear Friends, Board of Directors* StoryCorps is not a news organization. Though we have the utmost respect for journalists who Gara LaMarche, Chair uncover scandals, explain policy debates, or rush to the scenes of disasters, that’s not our job. We Dane E. Holmes, Vice Chair help our listeners make meaning of big events by focusing on the human stories within. Michael Shuman, Vice Chair Jim Moore, Treasurer In 2018, that role was more important than ever. Adelaide K. Jones, Secretary • The question of how America — and much of the world — treats immigrants and refugees was constantly in the headlines, dominating the national conversation. But too often it leaves Dave Isay, Founder & President the people at stake without a voice. We featured the story of Maria Rivas, who talked with Robin Sparkman, Chief Executive Officer her American-born daughter Emily about fears of having her Temporary Protected Status revoked and being forced to return to El Salvador for the first time in almost two decades, Directors leaving her children behind. Audrey Choi Jane Phillips Donaldson • School shootings and other acts of gun violence occur in America with numbing frequency. Sarah Elizabeth Feinberg Not long after the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, Gara LaMarche Vanita Gupta we heard 10-year-old Dezmond Floyd of Houston, who talked with his mother, Tanai Benard, after experiencing his first active shooter drill with his fifth grade class. Anne Herbert Mai Elizabeth J. McCormack • Deaths in police custody roil the nation, as protesters seek accountability and legal reforms. Too often the Scott Mitic lives of those who are lost are in danger of becoming statistics, so we listened to Chad Eisen-Ramgren and Blythe Haaga Parker his daughter Leila, who knew Philando Castile, who was killed by Minneapolis police at a traffic stop, as their beloved Mr. Phil, who managed the school cafeteria. Vic Parker Kim Rubey • Hate crimes like the murders of Jewish worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh now occur Jill Schlesinger, CFP® with disturbing regularity. A year after Heather Heyer was killed when a white supremacist rammed her with Murray Sinclaire, Jr. his car at the Charlottesville marches, her mother, Susan Bro, and friend, Alfred Wilson, came to remember a Vanessa Toussaint promising young life cut down by bigotry. David Wadhwani • As Congress and the courts challenged a new ban on transgender service members, Sue McConnell and Kristyn Weed — best friends, Vietnam-era combat veterans, and men who transitioned to women — talked Emeritus Members about the courage they saw and displayed on and off the battlefield. Former Senator Bill Bradley Kevin Klose • And at a time of deep polarization of American politics and culture, when too many fail to see even the common humanity of those who believe or worship differently, we were heartened by the StoryCorps conversation Deborah Leff between Amina Amdeen and Joseph Weidknecht, where her hijab and his MAGA hat gave them an unlikely Thomas A. Moore common bond. The way forward for our troubled country, we believe now more than ever, is through multiplying our efforts to understand our fellow-travelers on this planet. America is talking, StoryCorps is listening, and change can come if *Board as of April 2019 we can reach enough people. For your support in this, the vital work of our time, our deepest thanks. Gara LaMarche 4 STORIES TO REMEMBER John Banvard & Jerry Nadeau Tanai Benard & Dezmond Floyd Roman Coley Davis & Dan Marek Sue McConnell & Kristyn Weed “My name is John Banvard. I am 100 “I want to take the bullet and save my “They said, ‘Peaches, come up here, you “I had to be who I wasn’t so that I could years of age.” friends.” got some mail.’” survive.” Two married veterans look back upon the In a conversation released weeks after the Private First Class Roman Coley Davis, who Two best friends and Vietnam-era veterans beginnings of their 25-year relationship, when February shooting at Marjory Stoneman today works as a chef, remembers a special reflect together on their experiences as they were “sort of in the closet,” and their love Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, a package he received from his grandmother in transgender women, and the story of courage story ever since. son tells his mother about what it was like to Georgia while stationed at a remote outpost in and sisterhood they share. experience his first active shooter drill with his Afghanistan. Listen to the story. Listen to the story. fifth grade class. Listen to the story. Listen to the story. Juan Romero Amina Amdeen & Joseph Weidknecht The Temple of Knowledge High School Reunion, Part I & Part II “I remember him shaking my hand and, “I rushed towards you and I just started “I can hardly even imagine what my life “The school’s mascot was a Confederate as he let go, somebody shot him.” screaming, ‘Leave him alone!’” would’ve been like had I not lived in the colonel.” Fifty years after Senator Robert F.