WHAT WAS THE HAPPIEST MOMENT OF YOUR LIFE? THE SADDEST? WHO WAS THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON IN YOUR LIFE? CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT HIM OR HER? WHO HAS BEEN THE BIGGEST INFLUENCE ON YOUR LIFE? WHAT LESSONS DID THAT PERSON TEACH YOU? WHO HAS BEEN THE KINDEST TO YOU IN YOUR LIFE? WHAT ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT LESSONS YOU’VE LEARNED IN LIFE? WHAT IS YOUR EARLIEST MEMORY? ARE THERE ANY WORDS OF WISDOM YOU’D LIKE TO PASS ALONG TO ME? WHAT ARE YOU PROUDEST OF IN YOUR LIFE? WHEN IN LIFE HAVE YOU FELT MOST ALONE? HOW HAS YOUR LIFE BEEN DIFFERENT THAN WHAT YOU’D IMAGINED? HOW HAS BEING A PARENT CHANGED YOU? WHAT ARE YOUR DREAMS FOR YOUR CHILDREN? WHAT WAS YOUR CHILDHOOD LIKE? WHO WERE YOUR FAVORITE RELATIVES? HOW DID YOU AND ANNUAL REPORT GRANDPA MEET? WHAT WAS MOM LIKE GROWING UP? WHAT WERE YOUR PARENTS LIKE? WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE MEMORY OF ME? 2013 3 M e s s a g e f r o m t h e F o u n d e r & P r e s i d e n t a n d C EO 4 Message from the Board Chair 5 10th Anniversary Highlights 6 Inaugural Gala Highlights 7 StoryCorps in Chicago 8 Military Voices Initiative 9 StoryCorps Legacy 10 Recording Stories Across America 11 Sharing Our Stories 12 Capturing the Diversity of Our Nation 13 Additional StoryCorps Initiatives 14 StoryCorpsU 15 Financial Highlights 16 2013 StoryCorps Funders 19 Board of Directors 20 StoryCorps Staff 21 Mission and Core Principles CONTENTS 22 Continue the Conversation MESSAGE FROM THE FOUNDER & PRESIDENT AND CEO At StoryCorps, we have worked body and soul over the past decade to nurture and grow this organization. With a laser-like focus on the ethos and core values of StoryCorps, we have built an organizational culture that is fueled by excellence, integrity and a fierce commitment to public service. Every day the interviews we record help people—especially those who feel most invisible in our society—understand how much their own lives matter, and every week our broadcasts, celebrating the stories of everyday people, remind listeners that “this is what’s important!” We have been and always will be guided by a simple truth: that every life and every story matter equally and infinitely. As you will see, hear, and read in our latest Annual Report, 2013 was a milestone year for StoryCorps. We celebrated our 10-year anniversary, using the opportunity to reflect on our evolution and rapid growth. How have we served the nation in the past 10 years? Here are a few highlights: • We collected and archived more than 50,000 interviews with some 90,000 participants across America. Ours is the largest single collection of human voices ever gathered. • We opened StoryBooths in Chicago, San Francisco, Atlanta, and New York and launched MobileBooths that have visited hundreds of towns and cities across America. • We broadcast 500+ segments on NPR’s Morning Edition, heard by millions across the country every Friday. • We published a series of New York Times best-selling books and produced award-winning animations. Dave Isay, Founder & President Here are some highlights from 2013: • We put on our first annual gala—a resounding success. • We completed the first full year of our Military Voices Initiative. This collection will serve as a definitive record of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan through the eyes of those who experienced them. • We continued to grow StoryCorps Legacy, an initiative that delivers the StoryCorps recording experience to those facing a life- threatening illness. • We laid the groundwork for our OutLoud Initiative. This multi-year program will record, preserve, and share the stories of LGBT people across the United States. • We increased the number of students participating in StoryCorpsU, our yearlong curriculum for high-needs schools. In 2014, StoryCorps will continue to expand and improve upon the unique and extraordinary service we deliver to the country. In the decade to come, we will redouble our efforts to help foster a nation that fully recognizes, respects, and nurtures the dignity of humanity. We are deeply honored by your belief in StoryCorps and express our profound appreciation for your support. Robin Sparkman, CEO Dave Isay, Founder & President Robin Sparkman, CEO 3 MESSAGE FROM THE BOARD CHAIR The year 2013, marking our 10th anniversary, was not just a milestone of our past accomplishments, but a guidepost for our future—the year when it really became clear that what started as Dave Isay’s dream in a cramped walk-up office in Chinatown was well on its way to becoming an enduring national institution: • We were recognized with the prestigious John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions—$1 million to strengthen our institutional capacity and financial stability. • We held our first-ever gala—a 10th anniversary celebration—honoring longtime supporters Stanley Shuman and Jack Rosenthal, emceed by Stephen Colbert, and featuring a number of those who’ve told their stories to us over the past decade. That raised a million dollars, too! We also expanded our membership program and broadened our donor base. “It’s not just a tattoo.” • We launched our first StoryBooth in Chicago—fittingly, the home of the late Studs Terkel, an inspiration for StoryCorps, who christened our very first booth in Grand Central Terminal in 2003. We now have StoryBooths in four cities, including New York, Atlanta, and San Francisco. • Our fourth collection of stories, Ties That Bind: Stories of Love and Gratitude from the First Ten Years of StoryCorps, was released, and our first half-hour animated special premiered on the PBS series POV. All these things, and what lies on the horizon for 2014, like the launch of our OutLoud LGBTQ initiative, happen not just because people love StoryCorps, which so many millions do, but because farsighted individuals and institutions recognize that this great American institution—at once as intimate as a talk with your grandmother and as ambitious as an archive of the nation’s voices, from 9/11 to the civil rights movement to Katrina and Sandy Hook—cannot play the role it must play “It was very easy to be patient with him.” without financial support. Talk of the kind that StoryCorps fosters is beautiful, but it is not cheap. Providing our services at no charge to all who have a story to tell is only possible through the generosity of supporters like you. So please accept my thanks, on behalf of our board and staff, and please be as generous as you can with additional support. Gara LaMarche, StoryCorps Board Chair “You feel like being gay is like a virus.” 4 10TH ANNIVERSARY HIGHLIGHTS In 2013, StoryCorps celebrated a decade of recording everyday stories from coast to coast with a series of special events, including: 2003 2010 October: StoryCorps is February: StoryCorps • The release of our fourth book: Ties That born with the opening of a records its 30,000th Bind: Stories of Love and Gratitude from the StoryBooth in Grand Central interview. First Ten Years of StoryCorps Terminal in New York. Summer: StoryCorps’ • An inaugural gala in New York City, attended first series of animations by hundreds 2005 premieres on public • A prime-time half-hour animation special, May: StoryCorps launches television and online. Listening Is an Act of Love, that premiered on its two MobileBooths from the PBS series POV on Thanksgiving the Library of Congress. 2011 • A 10th Anniversary Membership program StoryCorps’ weekly September: StoryCorps broadcasts debut on NPR’s rolls out its education In just 10 years, StoryCorps has become a Morning Edition. program, StoryCorpsU, revolutionary force in our culture by recognizing with its first curriculum for the power and value in every story. We have: 2007 high-school students in • Collected and archived more than 50,000 June: StoryCorps receives New York City; Washington, a rare institutional interviews with nearly 100,000 participants DC; and St. Louis, MO. across the country. Peabody Award. • Broadcast more than 500 segments on NPR’s February: StoryCorps 2012 Morning Edition, heard by millions. launches the Griot Initiative April: StoryCorps receives • Published three New York Times best- to collect the stories of a Peabody Award for selling books, with our fourth released in African Americans. animations and audio October 2013. commemorating the • Created award-winning animated shorts for 2008 10th anniversary of the PBS’s documentary series POV. September: StoryCorps’ September 11, 2001, • Launched eight special initiatives to diversify Griot Initiative becomes the terrorist attacks. StoryCorps’ participants, partnerships, largest collection of African archive, edited stories, and audience. American stories in history. 2013 • Created StoryCorpsU, an interactive youth November: StoryCorps October: StoryCorps development program for high-needs schools. launches the first celebrates its 10th • Received two George Foster Peabody annual National Day of anniversary with an Awards, a rare institutional Peabody Award, Listening on the day after inaugural gala, hosted by and a $1 million MacArthur Prize for nonprofit Thanksgiving. Stephen Colbert. YEARS excellence in 2013. 5 INAUGURAL GALA HIGHLIGHTS On October 30, 2013, StoryCorps celebrated 10 I WOULD LIKE TO TELL YOU WHY I LOVE STORYCORPS. WE LIVE years of listening to America with an inaugural gala hosted by Stephen Colbert. The gala honored IN A TIME IN WHICH ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING IS A SOURCE two of StoryCorps’ greatest champions—founding Board member Jack Rosenthal and longtime OF DIVISION. EVERYTHING PLAYS AS A POLITICAL STATEMENT. supporter Stanley S. Shuman. COASTAL CITIES VERSUS SMALL TOWNS, MSNBC VS. FOX, Thanks to the leadership of gala co-chairs Alex and Michael Shuman, and Dane and Barbara COSTCO VS.