by Richard Ray Perez
Richard Ray Perez and Josh Penn at the Stories of Change Convening. Photo by David Fisher
In the 11 years since the start of Stories of Change, Sundance Institute and the Skoll Foundation have developed a deeper understanding of how stories can live in the world, influence culture, and advance social change. Learnings from both our experience and the field of impact storytelling are informing how we work and our vision for the program. The heart of this informed approach is collaboration.
On April 8, a delegation of Sundance Institute filmmakers, advisors, and staff met with a group of Skoll-awarded social entrepreneurs in Oxford, England, at the Stories of Change Convening (SOC) at the Skoll World Forum. This was the 11th SOC Convening at the forum, and it comes at a pivotal moment in the program and in the movement for impact storytelling.
For too long, both changemakers working on the ground to address pressing social issues as well as independent storytellers have worked in silos, relying on their respective talents, passion, and determination to create a better world. Typically, these actors are not fully integrated into what SOC advisor and founder of ActiveVoice Lab Ellen Schneider has identified at the “ecosystem of change.”
“Today’s social movements need powerful stories as much as they need leadership, policy research, grassroots organizing, funding, and other fuels,” Schneider points out. “And while story-based media can be a potent tool for change, it’s not enough. In our experience, real change comes only when interested sectors work together, each bringing to the table what they do best. Some have cutting-edge information, some have trusted relationships with grassroots networks, some have access to policy arenas. And some—the storytellers—have the ability to engage people with compelling narratives.”
For Stories of Change, engaging in the ecosystem means collaboration. But what does this collaboration look like? And how does it align with the respective missions of Sundance Institute and the Skoll Foundation?
At Stories of Change, we are discovering that in the social entrepreneur community there is some mystery about the role independent storytelling plays in social change and how artists can intervene in culture and disrupt our thinking. Conversely, independent storytellers and artists often perceive the concrete messaging needs of social entrepreneurs as irreconcilable with art and creativity and too constraining.
The SOC Convening dismantles these perceptions and the mystery behind how independent storytelling projects positively affect social change. Creative collaboration means allowing participants to do what they do best: letting storytellers tell great stories and empowering social entrepreneurs to harness the power of well-told independent media projects and leveraging those projects in their work.
The power of convening is a meeting on minds and alignment of mission. It’s tapping into the collective passion and compassion to leverage the power of independent storytelling and deliver us to a place of wisdom and transcendence. It dismantles forces that enable inequality, and in its place, creates a new equilibrium.
Richard Ray Perez is the director of creative partnerships for Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program and is the director of the feature documentary film Cesar’s Last Fast.
