 Welcome, everyone. Welcome to our TS30, Digital Storytelling. What's your story? We're happy to have you here today, and we know a lot of you are joining us. I see at least 70 or 80 people that are currently online for this event. This is actually a one-way event, so you will be seeing me. So it doesn't help art, the training and education manager, I'm the host. And also our expert presenter. What was I saying? Tight? Sorry. And he remains here today. So essentially we just want to make sure that you'll be able to hear us. You can chat. Some of you better move to this. I see some of the chats now. Go ahead and chat and if you have questions for any event, you can feel free at any time or let us know if you're having any problems. I'm going to take you into the course itself so that you can see where we're going for the archive of this event or the recording of this event. So I'm going to share my desktop right now. And now you should see me talking in the live event. Essentially what this is is this where you're watching the live event. You can chat in here. You can also see the link that Alicia will be chatting out. Alicia Kidd is our online learning specialist. And she will be chatting out the links that we just provided for us. You can also navigate your settings down here at this year. So if you want to change anything about the quality of what you're viewing, you can do that right here. Also just to give you a quick overview. When you go into August 8th, our last week event, you can see that we have our archive of the event right here. You can watch that. All of the resources that were mentioned last week are listed here. There is a survey that we encourage you to take for each event, whether you're at the live event or you watch it as a recording. And then there's also lots of other resources that we provided that are downloadable. So if you see a downloadable or an image of a document, you can simply click on the upper right-hand corner and that will pop up the document. It will take you to Google Docs and then you can download Trends or otherwise share that document. So for today's event, we don't have anything listed yet, but we will do that later on today so you'll be able to view all of those resources as well as the archive view. Great. And I'm going to stop sharing my desktop. And I am going to introduce Louis Tate, and he is going to be taking you through an amazing presentation that will really introduce you to building the power of storytelling within your nonprofit. So Louis, take it away. Great. Thanks, Susan. And hi, everyone. I'm really excited to be here, a part of StoryMakers 2017. This is our first event, actually. So we have just a really great lineup of TechSoup 30s webinars. We have a learning curriculum. We'll be sharing all these links. We have a contest that begins September 5th. And this is all around helping nonprofits build their storytelling capacity. And today's topic is on what is your story. And I'm going to share my screen now. So you can see here, our topic is what is your story? My name is Louis Hite. I'm the senior manager of our StoryMakers campaign. You can find me on Twitter at Luisha. And so our first question is why does TechSoup care about stories? Why has TechSoup, this is our seventh year of running a storytelling campaign. It's my third StoryMakers campaign here. And the reason is pretty basic. It's TechSoup, you know, as an organization, we believe in a world where nonprofits not only have access to technology. That's what we're most well known for through our donation program in the United States and around the world. But for StoryMakers, and starting seven years ago, we realized that nonprofits must have the capacity to tell their story through video and images and to show their mission through storytelling. This was around when it was clear that YouTube was taking off. And so the capacity to tell a story, to use video well and images well, it was clear it was becoming almost as important as providing nonprofits with the technology that you need. So these are just a few of the reasons we could have a whole TechSoup 30. We could have a whole hour webinar and probably a series of webinars just on the video landscape. But I just chose a few kind of powerful bullets here. So, you know, YouTube, YouTube has over a billion users. A third of the people on the internet are watching video and personally, I actually think it's even higher. You can see the future, a little typo there, the future is video, not if video. By 2017 online video will account for 74% of all online traffic. So we're here. That's what's happening now. Then I thought this last one was a really interesting statistic. I think this is the reason a lot of you are probably attending and why nonprofits care so much about storytelling, which is the power of video that a good video on your landing page can increase conversion by 80%. That's a pretty high, you know, that's a pretty powerful statistic. So to begin the storytelling journey, we have to ask the question, what is your story? And today I'm going to take you through a three-part process to answer that question. And I want to give credit to one of my mentors and really excited to let people know that Searing Lama from Greenpeace is going to be presenting our first Storymakers webinar. It'll be on authentic storytelling, a 10-step process. So even though today I'm just focusing on three parts, Searing's webinar is really the inspiration for my presentation today. And I really recommend that everyone come, sign up. We're going to have the links in the TechSoup30. And I'm going to just take a break and read Searing's description because I think it's really important framework for this question of what is your story. So give me one second. And so this is our Storymakers page. We'll be putting the link there. And what you're seeing here is our timeline. And September 14th is the webinar with Searing. And so Searing is, wait for my screen to show. Searing is a storytelling advisor at Greenpeace. She travels around the world for Greenpeace to their different offices and helps the various offices and chapters better tell their stories. So we're really fortunate to have her. And as Searing and I were developing her webinar, I just want to read the description and a key part of it, which I feel is kind of the core to this question of what is your story. The process of creating stories is as important as the process of presenting that story. Creating a story is an ethical process. It comes from a non-profit's heart, mind, and passion from the body. So I'm going to go back to my presentation and we'll begin this journey. And today it's an introduction for Searing's webinar. It'll be an even deeper dive. And by the end of between today and especially after the webinar, you really will be able to have a very rigorous comprehensive process to beginning the storytelling journey and answering the question, what is your story? I also just want to point out all of the offerings that Texas has that today we're focusing on the narrative aspect in Searing's webinar. We'll also be focusing on the narrative aspect. But one of the things we're really proud of about our storymakers campaign is that we also focus on the production aspect. And together those two can make a impact story. And we'll have the links for you on our digital storytelling for beginners course. It's a perfect course for those of you that are new to storytelling and want to guide to the pre-production, production, and post-production process. And then I'll final shout out to our CRAC webinar team. Our second webinar will be focused on production. We're really excited to have a video producer from the organization do something. Kerry Groff, who is an expert in literally producing videos. And so Kerry will be sharing do-something tips on our second webinar. So this is the three-part process that we're going to be focused on today. The first is alignment. What we mean by alignment is you as an organization need to look at and think about what has been your story. This can be an update to say a video that you already have. It can be the start of the process. But even if it's the start of the process, your organization has a story. If you're an organization working in mental health, what exactly has been the story? How when you have visitors come to your office, how do you tell them your story? So we'll dive into that. And then the visioning. Visioning has to do with what is the result of your story? What do you see as the pot of gold at the end of your journey? That is, if your story comes to fruition and is achieved, what does that look like for you? And then on the flip side as part of this process, and we'll dive deeper into this, what does it mean to face ruin? What does it mean if your organization fails? Mapping this out helps you refine the question and the answer to what is your story? And then the last part that we'll go over is to co-develop this whole journey. How do we get there? And this is a two-fold co-develop dynamic. So how does the follower of your story get, let's say, to the promised land, to this pot of gold? But also, how do you as the storyteller co-develop this story? And so we want to help you provide you with a community and the resources and the process to be able to get there. So first is alignment. And one of the best metaphors that I discovered when I was fleshing out this process is, literally, truly, imagine speaking to a Martian. Imagine you're talking to an alien and you need to tell this person who knows absolutely nothing, who has no idea who you are, what has been your story. So these are all questions that we want people literally to write out, which is what has been your story till now? Who are the key characters? What are their motivations? What have led them, yourself, but you need to think of it as your characters? What have led you to this point? And these factors listed on the bottom of the slide really apply to the whole process. As you develop the story, as you answer these questions, we need to be flexible and light enough to refine the story. Stories need to be fluid. They need to adapt. They need to be updated. They need to be refined. And those are just some key traits to keep in mind as we move through this process. One of the big things that I, again, got from Syrian is to move from being dogmatic defenders to being open-minded. What we mean there, and we'll share some other examples, is to basically expand your horizon to open up yourself to possibilities. And then some other key factors just for us to consider as we ask and answer this question, what is your story, is the narrative has to be built from within. In Syrian's webinar description, she talked about that this process needs to be an ethical one. It needs to come from your heart. It needs to come from the body of your organization. It needs to be able to change as people's hearts and bodies and minds change. And it needs to reflect the organization's culture, values and themes. And I think this is really important. This is something to think about. You brainstorm this with your team. Because especially in today's world, stories can be used in very, very many ways. They can be used to manipulate. They can be used for misinformation and disinformation. And so the best counter to that is to embrace storytelling. And this is something that TechSoup believes storytelling as an ethical process. So the next part is the visioning. Here, these are some key points to consider when you're thinking about the visioning of your story. It's where do you want people to enter? Where do you want people to begin? Are you, say, beginning at... Do you need to construct a new, literally a building for your organization? Is it for a campaign? Is it about the mission? Has your mission changed? Is it about a pivot? And then these are the key questions that we want you to look at as part of this process. Which is, what is the best case scenario if you win? We tell stories to engage and to have an impact and to really activate our supporters. But what does that mean? What does that mean for you if your best case scenario comes to be? And one way to help you refine that is what would the world look like if you fail? And be specific. These are very kind of grand, general questions. But the key thing is to ground it for your organization. And for your very, very unique, specific needs. And hence your specific story. So we can get into towards the end if we have time. Some examples if people want to ask. We can do that. But again, we really want to encourage, you know, you who took the time to attend this TechSoup 30 to not do this alone. That's a point I really want to emphasize that storytelling can be intimidating for very many nonprofits. It can feel intimidating around the process of answering the question that we're focused on today. Which is, what is your story? If you're a homeless shelter, it's like that question can feel overwhelming. So don't feel like you have to answer it alone. That's really, really important that we want to encourage nonprofits to create your own community. At least create your own team. We know many nonprofits are small. If you're a two-person organization, do it together. Discuss it over lunch. This can be a lunch exercise where you take this presentation and you, you know, start putting it on a board and put out your answers, put down your responses, and then come back to it. Come back to it next week. Have a follow-up lunch. Have a 15-minute check-in. It's really important that this process not feel overwhelming and it shouldn't. It should feel something very organic. As we said earlier, it should feel like it's coming from the body of your organization. And that process that we're talking about is how do you co-develop the story? And, you know, I love and we'll share the links in our TechSoup 30, which is the idea. And again, I want to give credit to Greenpeace and their storytelling team. And you'll be able to see the link where they really talk about this, being courageous and generous. You know, stories can, I mean, I think we, you know, we have to acknowledge that it's very easy, especially on social media to focus on the negative or focus on attacks and to kind of, we see, you know, kind of different types of stories going viral that way. And that's, you know, that will always be an option. That is always there. But that obviously is not our focus. That's a type of storytelling that is reactive, that is often negative. It's, you know, the opposite of being courageous and generous. So that's the side of the fence that we fall on with storytelling. You know, we want to provide tools for organizations to create stories that are contagious and spread generosity and courage that are compared to the other types of contagion that just check out Twitter and you know what I'm talking about. So these are the questions to ask with your team as you co-develop the story. Again, put the answers on a board, do it together, and don't see this as a one time or two time process. It really should be, you know, at least a month. And frankly, this is a year long process. Hopefully nonprofits will submit to our Storymakers 2017 campaign. You will create a video or five photographs and you can submit those. But, you know, come back next year. And even, you know, that's why we do the Storymakers yearly. But really, I mean, you need to be looking at your story all the time. If you're on social media, you know, you can update your story with images much easier than, you know, updating it with a video. And now you can even do videos. You know, we can do 10 second Instagram videos or Facebook lives. So the importance of asking these questions and returning to them again and again is something that I really want to emphasize. So the other sets of questions, you know, we previously, you know, we're focused with the visioning that relates to what is the conflict at the center of your story. And here, you know, this third step is really kind of, we could call it co-visioning or co-developing as well. It's sharing amongst your team and really trying to refine that. Again, we don't, you know, we know that it's a very competitive digital landscape. They're very, very, they're literally billions of hours of video content being created. So the specifics and specification is key here. So some of the ways that you can really ground the story is to think about the setting for the conflict. Where is it taking place? If you're a mental health organization in Louisiana, what is unique about your setting? What is unique about the community that you are serving? So who are the characters in your community? Who are the characters that come to your organization, that enter your building day in day, that call you up on the phone? And then again, these final sets of binaries here are really important because these are what will help you refine and ultimately come to an answer around this question of what is your story? You need to think about what happens if you succeed and what happens if you fail? What happens if people are greedy and don't support you? Or what happens if they're generous? What happens if scarcity takes hold or if there's abundance? And then your story should always come back to how do you get to the pot of gold? That is the key. That is what you want to be discussing with your colleagues, with your supporters, with your volunteers, with strangers, with an alien that you imagine coming if you're from Mars or it's from Venus, whatever you prefer. But this is the process that will help you develop your story to get to that pot of gold. So these are the resources that we'll be sharing. Again, I encourage everyone to come to the 10 step process webinar. It's going to be, I'm going to be attending, not just as a story maker aficionado, but as a tech soup employee. So it'll help us tell our story. It'll help. I'm going to share it with some nonprofits that I volunteer with. I can't kind of emphasize enough how excited I am about that webinar. The story maker's 2017 page is where our contest will be hosted. We're really excited this year that we have one of the things that we realized last year that it was kind of unfair to have a contest where small nonprofits were competing against some of the largest, you know, the international, the Greenpeace, the, you know, Red Cross Mothership. You know, that's just an unfair competition in terms of their video submission to a, you know, two to three person, you know, youth mindfulness nonprofit in Albuquerque. That's just an example, hypothetical. But so what we're doing this year is we have three are our contest. We're asking organizations and people who are submitting to list the their organization size. So we're breaking it down by budget. The small first category is for organizations with a budget under 500,000. The second is 500,000 to a million. Then the third is over a million. I'm not sure, Susan, if we have a global audience today, but we also, you know, tell your friends who work at NGOs abroad that we have a global category this time. So that's something new. And then, of course, we have a community voting a people's choice category. And all of that information is you can dig into our FAQs on the on the story maker page. We also have the links to our first comprehensive storytelling curriculum. Shout out to Susan, who helped put that together and my colleague Ali Bezekian. This is a comprehensive pre production production and post production course that you can take and and we're excited to have them free. And then this year were one of the tools that we're focusing on is Adobe Spark. And it's a very easy if people are intimidated by the storytelling process and where to begin. It's a really great tool to start with. The last thing is we have our TechSoup forums. If you have any storytelling question, hop on in there, post to the in our storytelling branch and specifically in our story makers 2016 2017 thread. And we will respond to you. These are some of the other links that I use in the presentation. I really recommend the book elements of story by Francis Flaherty. Francis is an editor or was an editor at the New York Times, but it just has tons. If you're looking for kind of what makes up a great story. I recommend this book highly and then, you know, take a look at the mobilization lab that is something that Greenpeace did. And then you can see more about what I was talking about when I talk about being courageous in the storytelling process from the link there. So that's it. I'm on a hand it off back to Susan and thank you everyone and check us out at Story Makers 2017. Thanks so much, Lewis. You covered a lot of information and before I go to the course where I'll try 15 seconds, we did get a question from Stacy. Stacy wants to know if we have production companies donating their services to these projects. Do we? I think I'm unmuted now Stacy. We have a partnership with the Taproot Foundation and they started an online platform called Taproot Plus where you can sign up. And so nonprofits in need of help can sign up and then professionals who offer their services sign up. So we'll share those things as well. That's really the best resource we have there. Great. Thanks Lewis. We, Lewis and I are actually in the same room. So if you guys notice, I saw someone say lip syncing. That's so funny. That's good. There is, but it's always difficult. We're in the same room because we're muting and unmuting. So sorry about that everybody. And thanks for letting us know. Couple quick things. We are exactly at the one o'clock top of the hour. I did really, really super, super quickly want to share my desktop and I am going to show you the course, the Story Makers course. It's a free course. So look, if you guys, if any of you are just getting started or you think you need some resources such as templates or handouts and we've done them all as fillable PDFs. So you'll be able to download them and type into them. There are three modules, pre production, production and post production. So you know, we've got a webinar series, both 60 minute webinars and 30 minute webinars like this to cover these three processes for digital storytelling. And when you go into the module, there is a getting started tab which has a glossary of words that you should know if you're a digital storyteller. There's short videos. I swear they are short. There's also activities. So activities could be something like how to evaluate your video concept. Like Louis said about being generous and getting your whole team to think about it. Well, evaluating to determine what is the best concept. And this is a fillable field. So you can actually download this, you can click on these buttons and it will do the addition for you. So no math needed. And you can check and see if your concept meets some minimum qualifications. Also, lots of things like shot lists, production plan evaluation tool, their spreadsheets, matrices, there's release forms. Everything you could possibly need in your planning or your pre production process. And same thing, module two and module three are the exact same. They're built the same way they're designed for different styles of learners like you in nonprofit and library land. So we want you to take advantage of this tool and also to give us feedback. It's important that we keep on getting feedback to make it better. And if we miss the mark, we want you to tell us corrective feedback is actually one of the nicest compliments because it means you took the time to tell us what we could do better. I'm going to go ahead and go back into my own video and I want to thank Lewis. Lewis took a lot of time to put this presentation together. He heads up the team that develops and delivers the story makers campaign every year. So Lewis, thank you. I know you have a lot on your plate and we really appreciate your time and your expertise. I also want to thank Alicia on the back end for chatting out all the links and especially to all of you who came to this event. I promise we will get the PowerPoint up. The recording will be up as long as all of the links that Lewis shared in the PowerPoint will put those in the course as well. You'll be able to find it in the August 15th module and you can watch any of our other recorded events that have occurred since April. Again, thank you so much. We hope to see you again in two weeks on August 29th where we start talking about preproduction to that planning process. Lewis, thanks so much. Have a great week. It's Tuesday, so have a great rest of your week. Bye-bye.