Develop your storytelling skills in a Sidebar Stories WORKSHOP or catch a storytelling PERFORMANCE created by our reflective arts team members.
Most experiential WORKSHOPS are free and focus on stories of an announced topic. The contribution you make is the story you tell.
PERFORMANCES are supported in part by donation when you reserve your ticket.
Sidebar Stories will conduct a workshop for your organization or cause. Each workshop can be designed for your group and current goals. We offer a training workshop for your leaders to encourage a culture of storytelling in your organization.
We also offer a workshop for your group members that honors each voice and strengthens community. As a host, you will be responsible for providing space and workshop promotion. Cost is determined on a sliding scale. Contact us for details.
If you believe in the power of story to change the way things are and in the mission of Sidebar Stories, you can donate toward the cost of upcoming events. We often work with people in the margins of life who lack resources to support our services. Make sure their voices are heard. Help us encourage and provide a platform for voices that too often are not heard, but need to be.
Let us help you strengthen relationships, clarify group identity and increase loyalty to your mission by sharing common stories. Stories well told bond people with each other.Telling them encourages your members to become guides and cheerleaders for each other, regardless of their position. Storytelling is a natural way to achieve inclusion and belonging.
Stories act as viruses that infiltrate a group one person at a time until members share a commitment to common goals and values. Leaders understand the power of story to generate healthy or dysfunctional systems. We teach your leaders to further storytelling skills and habits in everyday conversation throughout the organization that lead to greater hope and competency.
You’re doing good work that deserves to be known and supported. Stories about your programs and people make the importance of your work evident. As personal stories about the impact you make in individual lives spread through the community from person to person, others will be drawn to the work you do.
FUNDRAISING: Increase your funding as you share personal stories with donors in a way that respects and honors every member of your group. You affirm storytellers when original artwork, music, drama and written narratives are created that demonstrate the value of your work.
Storytellers gain confidence, competence and a sense of purpose as they share their stories. We place a high value on the safety and dignity of each storyteller, especially when stories contain elements of trauma, shame, or difficult relationships. The integrity and experience of Sidebar Stories leadership and the methods used avoid exploitation of anyone who freely chooses a level of vulnerability as a path to healing and individual growth. Seeing this process at work creates social change as others become more comfortable in owning and telling their own stories in a way that is meaningful and makes a difference.
Attend a workshop to learn how the PHD Story Map works, discover more about your own story and begin telling it. Workshops are practical and interactive. You will be surprised at how much you and other ordinary experts have to offer toward changing common false narratives that impact your life.
Experience the fullness of true personal stories being translated into music, art, spoken word and drama. These community events are designed for social change as well as entertainment. Interdisciplinary storytelling creates a difference that makes a difference in the way we see and hear each other. Join us in a public expression of important stories in the news through the lens of personal experience.
❝ a short account of personal experience that relates to a featured theme. Often used to confirm, shift or add to the dominant narrative.
❝ something incidental, a sidelight adding insight or perspective to the primary article, usually near the main story, but separate from it.
Sidebars create a whole new conversation
What are the dominant narratives
you want to confirm or change?
Grateful for the unique privilege of hearing so many incredible stories from ordinary experts through his experience as a family therapist, hospice chaplain, restorative justice facilitator and spiritual director, Ron realized these stories need to be heard by people seeking change in their own lives and in the world. So he made up Sidebar Stories.
Born on the island of Dominica, Glenda grew up among storytellers,especially her father, where stories were her source of news and entertainment. As agraduate of Columbia University and author with experience in corporate finance,Glenda brings her own story and skills to keep us organized.
As a clinical art therapist, Mimi has been deeply involved in facilitating stories of human trafficking, domestic violence, refugee displacement, criminal justice,racism, grief and trauma. Her own story includes being a survivor of much, lover of beauty and justice, a drummer and yoga instructor. She stretches us all to be creative, peaceful, caring and healthy.
Neal is a successful composer and musician who writes and sings his own story and the stories of others. With experience in working with young people,directing worship, social services and program director of an urban nonprofit, he has a passion for justice that teaches and moves us to care about what matters. Neal is a social networker who keeps us all connected.
“Thanks to Sidebar Stories, people are discovering how to tell their own story on their own terms with freedom, respect and hope, no matter what their journey may be. Few models of storytelling in community effectively and respectfully humanize storytelling as a vehicle of empowerment and social change. This is one of them. They have cracked the code of translating the solid science of storytelling into a simple and practical method easily accessed by everyone. Ron and his team bring a depth of skill, creativity, integrity, and wisdom to lead this work. The design of these stories cuts through much of the jargon, data, labels and assumptions associated with just talking.”
“Under the gentle guidance of the facilitator, and spurred by the discussion with and input from the other members of the group, I discovered new beauty and meaning in my story, teasing out significant themes and seeing where they pointed in terms of my future. The emphasis on movement, journey, healing is powerful. The use of images takes verbal folks like myself out of our wordy brains and into a more fluid space that is rich with possibility and freedom to imagine. I highly recommend the experience to anyone who is in need of an impetus for change, the encouragement that comes from dreaming of new directions, and the courage that comes from community storytelling.”
Develop your storytelling skills in a Sidebar Stories WORKSHOP or catch a storytelling PERFORMANCE created by our reflective arts team members. Most experiential WORKSHOPS are free and focus on stories of an announced topic. The contribution you make is the story you tell.
PERFORMANCES are supported in part by donation when you reserve your ticket.
Sidebar Stories will conduct a workshop for your organization or cause. Each workshop can be designed for your group and current goals. We offer a training workshop for your leaders to encourage a culture of storytelling in your organization.We also offer a workshop for your group members that honors each voice and strengthens community. As a host, you will be responsible for providing space and workshop promotion. Contact us for details.
If you believe in the power of story to change the way things are and in the mission of Sidebar Stories, you can donate toward the cost of upcoming events. We often work with people in the margins of life who lack resources to support our services. Make sure their voices are heard. Having your voice heard shouldn’t depend on having the money needed to spread what needs to be said.
You work with people who matter who have stories that matter. Schedule a Sidebar Stories workshop now to let those stories become part of the story about the work you do and what you stand for. Here’s what building
a culture of storytelling can do for your organization.
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We’re excited about collecting stories that matter from people who matter. Here are some stories we’d love to hear from you.
Can you help make our dreams come true?
Sidebar Stories humanize and contribute to bigger stories that impact all of us. They leverage the power of real life, transformative storytelling and the arts to create new perspectives on old narratives.
Let's talk about collecting stories for your cause or organization by holding a storytelling workshop or performance in your area. Sidebar Stories is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in the greater Philadelphia area and will travel to gather stories anywhere in the world.