We are storytellers for change.

 

Impactful storytelling for you, your organization, and the world. 

Since 2010, we’ve worked with thousands of youth, educators, leaders, and over 100 cross-sector organizations to amplify their impact through storytelling. We work at the intersection of narrative, leadership development, facilitation, participatory engagement, and community building for social change, racial equity, belonging, joy, and healing.

  • We bring a storyteller mindset, practice, and approach to all of our work. We believe in the power of stories to build a just world.

  • We engage in the art and practice of designing and facilitating gatherings and learning experiences. We foster empathy, harvest collective wisdom, and facilitate racial equity and healing processes.

  • We are a multidisciplinary team with expertise in facilitation, narrative strategy, education, participatory engagement, digital storytelling, and leadership development.

 
 

About Us

 

Our Mission: To build an empathetic, inclusive and equitable world through storytelling.

 

Our Approach

Our approach is informed by an experiential learning process (Kolb, 1984) that is intersectional (Crenshaw, 1989), restorative (Ladson-Billings, 2015), liberatory (hooks, 1994), rooted in Critical Hope (Duncan-Andrade, 2008), and focused on three core practices and strategies: story-listening, story-crafting, and story-sharing. We call our approach Story-Centered Impact. 

  • Effective storytellers are first and foremost empathetic story-listeners. Authentic listening driven by a commitment to equity and inclusion is what allows organizations and leaders to center systematically unheard and marginalized stories. Intentional acts and equitable processes of story-listening also generate radical empathy, build trust, and allows us to better understand each others’ hopes, needs, values, and strengths.

  • Crafting stories to illustrate as well as deliver impact requires a fundamental understanding of how to shape compelling narrative arcs as well as a commitment to co-creation principles. Stories crafted in dialogue and collaboration with the community will not only produce stronger narrative arcs, but also facilitate a community-centered process to uncover the critical stories that can bridge, heal, and transform society.

  • We share stories with the objective to inspire and mobilize the whole person, as well as entire communities and organizations, into action (heart, head, and hands). This requires an understanding of storytelling principles as well as a deep sense of connection to the values represented in the story being shared. Furthermore, story-sharing also means providing communities with resources and channels so they can amplify their own stories.

“We would 100% recommend working with Storytellers for Change! From communication to scheduling to the sessions themselves, our experience was overwhelmingly positive and made an impact on our participants.”
— Education First
“Storytellers for Change works at the intersection of talent, passion, empathy, care, insight, and utility. We learned a lot and gained valuable tools to use as educators, and was really captivated. It truly was a great experience!”
— Vermont Student Assistance Corporation
“Strong, bright, and deeply understanding community leaders. They took time to get to know our hopes and aligned the storytellers’ workshop along our goals and values to help us deepen our group connection and learning.”
— Bend the Arc

Our Values: Joy, Reciprocity, Justice, Community & Service

Meet the Team

  • Luis Ortega (he/they)

    DIRECTOR & FOUNDER

    Luis is a multidisciplinary storyteller, facilitator, educator, and artist. Over the last fourteen years, Luis has worked with cross-sector organizations to co-design storytelling strategies and leadership programs to foster empathy, inclusion, and equity across communities.

  • Irina Ortega (she/her)

    SENIOR CONSULTANT

    Irina is a participatory design facilitator, researcher, anthropologist, and environmental justice consultant. Irina has over a decade of experience co-designing social impact projects in various regions of Mexico and facilitating leadership and storytelling workshops for youth, educators and changemakers.

  • Domonique Meeks (he/him)

    PARTNER & COLLABORATOR

    Domonique is a storyteller, facilitator, data scientist, and entrepreneur. Domonique’s work is focused on community-centered storytelling, digital access, economic development, and democratizing media. He is also the co-founder of IDLE Seattle and the co-host of the No Blueprint Podcast.

  • Lissy Marin-Contreras (she/her/ella)

    PROGRAMS COORDINATOR

    Lissy is a student at the Univesity of Washington, where she’s studying Marketing at the Foster School of Business with a minor in Diversity. As the Programs Coordinator, Lissy leads our communications, community building, and Storytellers Cohorts programs.