Community Story Harvesting & Listening Sessions
Structured listening that produces evidence, not just goodwill
Format
Multi-session engagement · 1-3 months
Built For
Nonprofits, foundations, government agencies, coalitions, higher education institutions, corporations, and organizations seeking a deeper understanding of the experiences and needs of the people they serve or employ
CHALLENGE
Feedback gets collected butÂ
neer absorbed into how decisions get made. Organizations end up with input they cannot act on and stakeholders who feel consulted rather than heard.
What We Do
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Gather community perspectives, expertise, and lived
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experience
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Surface barriers, opportunities, and community strengths
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Identify themes across individual accounts
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Build trust among stakeholders
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Ensure stories are gathered with consent, context, and community benefit — never extracted
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Translate qualitative insight into actionable recommendations
What Participants Leave With
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A supported setting in which to share lived experience
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Stronger connections with peers and community partners
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Shared understanding of common challenges and
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opportunities
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Greater confidence as their expertise is recognized and
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elevated in organizational and community change
How the Engagement Runs
01
Design a culturally responsive engagement approach that is
strengths-based and non-extractive
02
Co-create psychological safety and trust
03
Facilitate story-sharing and listening sessions
04
Capture community experience and insight
05
Identify emerging themes and patterns
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Synthesize findings into recommendations
07
Support the organization in applying what it learned
Deliverables
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Facilitated listening sessions
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Community expertise and insights summary
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Key themes and findings report
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Action-oriented recommendations
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Stakeholder engagement documentation
In Practice - California Stop the Hate Initiative
Facilitated a statewide storytelling and listening experience with more than 70 nonprofit leaders from over 30 organizations. Participants surfaced lived experience of hate incidents in their communities and connected it to broader patterns visible in statewide data.
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Structured story-sharing and facilitated dialogue identified common challenges, community strengths, and openings for advocacy — turning individual experience into collective insight and a foundation for continued engagement and systems change.