Leading Through Stories

Transforming Nonprofit Advocacy with Digital Stories

June 10, 2024 • Kristy Wolfe, Heather Knox • Season 3 • Episode 18

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How can storytelling revolutionize the nonprofit sector? Join us in an engaging conversation with Heather Knox, a digital storytelling facilitator who takes us on her incredible journey from co-founding Project Somos in Guatemala to how she is incorporating photography and guided autobiography into her work. Heather shares how storytelling have profoundly impacted her work with Indigenous Mayan children and women. She highlights the importance of privacy and trust in these narratives and discusses how storytelling can galvanize support and engage donors, making it a critical tool in nonprofit advocacy and community building.

Discover the nuances of digital storytelling and its significance in nonprofit fundraising. Heather recounts a memorable collaborative story co-created with Blanca, illustrating the importance of listening and identifying key narrative elements. Throughout the episode Heather expresses gratitude for the leadership and camaraderie within the Common Language Digital Storytelling community, emphasizing the collective effort that drives these impactful narratives. Don't miss this insightful episode on the profound impact of storytelling in nonprofit work.

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About Our Guest
Heather Alicia Knox is a non-profit leader, digital storytelling facilitator and photographer, based in Mexico and Guatemala. She is co-founder of the Project Somos Children’s Learning Village based in the Central Highlands of Guatemala. Heather has over thirty years experience working in the non-profit sector. Her work has included international, arts and educational organizations. She has worked with children with special needs, rescued dogs, designed farm to table educational programming, recruited and managed volunteers (up to 1200 at a time!) and provided courses and training. Her greatest loves are children and dogs. She loves connecting with individuals and listening deeply to their stories and experiences in the world and values storytelling as a mode to see and hear from others.
Connect with Heather: heatheraknox@gmail.com


About Leading Through Stories

Everyone has a story to tell—and what we do with that story can create lasting impact. Every episode, Leading Through Stories, helps unravel the how and why of digital storytelling with host Kristy Wolfe.

Life is made up of meaningful moments—which ones do you want to share?

This podcast is presented by Common Language DST, digital storytelling facilitation training for health and wellness changemakers.

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Heather Knox:

My passion and my interests are around working with nonprofits and how storytelling can really help further their vision and maybe reach more people, find more donors. I am excited to work with nonprofits moving forward and I know there's a lot of overlap too, because a lot of organizations are health-related or medical-related.

Mike Lang:

Welcome to Leading Through Stories, a podcast that explores the how and why of digital storytelling. My name is Dr Mike Lang and I'm the founder and lead instructor of Common Language Digital Storytelling of common language digital storytelling. In each episode, our level three facilitator, K christy Wolfe, connects with storytellers or common language trained facilitators to learn more about the health and wellness stories that they are creating and sharing. Life is made up of meaningful moments. Which ones do you want to share?

Kristy Wolfe:

With me today is Heather Knox. Now, heather and I know each other from the photography world, but she is also a common language digital storytelling facilitator with our collective. Heather, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, as well as where you are?

Heather Knox:

For sure. I'm excited to be here. Kristy, thanks for inviting me. So I am currently living in Mexico, in the state of Jalisco. I was living in Guatemala for the past 13 years and we relocated here in November, so we're taking a little break from years and years of very, very hard work.

Kristy Wolfe:

What were you doing? What's the hard work? Tell people about that.

Heather Knox:

Okay, so my husband, greg, and I co-founded the project Somos Children's Learning Village, which is. It's a project which provides quality education and healthy food for Indigenous Mayan children living in the Central Highlands of Guatemala. So we relocated from Vancouver in 2011 and we started the project down there, formed a team, built the buildings, started the programming and now, after all those years, we've found new leadership and we have stepped away, still connected, but taking a much needed break stepped away, still connected, but taking a much needed break.

Kristy Wolfe:

Well, I had met Heather through a photography conference, but last year I actually went down to Project Somos when you were doing a photography retreat, and so I got to meet your team at Project Somos. I got to spend time photographing a family. I photographed Norma and her four children. She's one of the women that works at the project, and so I am envisioning all of these things as you're talking about it, and it just brings back some really nice memories. I really enjoyed my time there and I will definitely put a link to Project Somos into this episode's show notes so that people can find out a bit more if that's of interest. But, heather, how did you come to be a storytelling facilitator?

Heather Knox:

In 2016, I actually started studying photography so that I could tell better stories about what we were doing at the project, and then I attended a non-profit storytelling conference a couple of times and really started to connect the dots around photography, the power of storytelling and the two together. And I was talking to a friend who's a friend of another common language storyteller, maureen, and I was telling them about my kind of this awakening or this realization about the power of storytelling, and she told me about common language and I don't know. It was just like an aha moment and I had to find out. So I started to, I had a call with Maureen and then Maureen mentioned you and Crystal were there. So I had a call with you guys and I called Mike and I did all my homework and I'm like, yep, that's it, and so I took my facilitator training in 2022.

Kristy Wolfe:

You've created a few digital stories Do you want to tell us about like a favorite, or one that kind of stands out for you?

Heather Knox:

It's really hard because the first three stories that I told were of three women that are involved in the project, so it's very.

Heather Knox:

Each one of them impacted me greatly and of course, the first one was Blanca's story, and for me what was really impactful was she said no one had ever asked her about her life and no one had ever listened, and so it was this very sacred for lack of a better word time together and I learned so much about her.

Heather Knox:

She felt so seen and heard, heard, and it was a very bonding experience for the two of us. Then I would have to say that doing Norma's story and you know Norma, so that was super special was to to find out just how tough life has been for Norma, and then I got to include those photos that you took of her when you were at the project. So that was a really meaningful one, and she's been really open to sharing her story with visiting volunteers and it's been really impactful to hear how emotional it has been for others to hear her story and how seen and loved she is. So these stories just keep giving. My stories aren't public because they are so private and so personal and we just would not want them to get out wider than a controlled community. But they're life-changing to hear the stories and to be part of it with these women.

Kristy Wolfe:

Well, and Heather, you've really thought about this from an organizational perspective and a caring for storytellers perspective, right, you do. The stories do get shared in a small group, like when I was there at the photography retreat. We did watch Blanka's story and Blanka was there and we got to have conversation through you and I think you've shared Norma's story with me because I know her. So I think that reminder too that stories don't need to be widely available publicly, that there can be certain purposes for stories, and I know those women have a lot of trust with you and they have created stories that they're comfortable working on with you. But I think that really does just emphasize again that well-being the storyteller well-being making sure we're caring for storytellers, especially when the topics are a bit riskier, right? Why did you originally think digital storytelling might be a fit for your role with Project Somos?

Heather Knox:

I can tell you that when we share a story with a photo and we send it out to our donors or our supporters, money comes in without an ask. The story impacts them and triggers something in them, and so I've seen the power over and over and again. And then I get feedback from our donors. You know I was really impacted by Blanca's story. Here's $1,000. The second story I did was Rosario and she was one of our teachers and we did a screening with, we invited our donors and she felt so acknowledged as a teacher and a provider at the project. So people get moved to give when they know who it's going to and how their money is making a difference.

Kristy Wolfe:

We've talked about this before, but digital stories are so different because you hear that person's voice, you see images that are often personal images that belong to them, and so you're really getting hit from all these different angles and the impact can be huge.

Kristy Wolfe:

I even I'm just thinking about the photography retreat and at the end we got all the staff together. The volunteers that were there at the time brought some of the kids and the families and we showed them the photos that we'd taken over the week in our documentary style storytelling sessions and, like people, were in tears because I think it's true in Canada as well we don't often get to see ourselves in our stories, and so being able to show Norma what that looked like, then you spending time later on to really delve into her telling her story, telling the background of it and putting that together with images and music, is huge, even if it never gets shown anywhere else. I also wanted to bring up the fact that you speak Spanish fluently, and so this has been a huge bonus, because each of those stories were done in Spanish. Often you're sharing with English speaking audiences, or that's who, like there, might be sharing with. So what was your kind of tack to to managing two different languages.

Heather Knox:

I had to translate it all Thank you, Google Translate with a little tweaking and then create subtitles in the story and make sure they got added to it. So it was a whole skill set that I had to master in my digital storytelling to make sure that those subtitles are correctly translated and also that they stay on the screen long enough for people to be able to read them.

Kristy Wolfe:

When you're creating the story with your storyteller, you're working all in Spanish and then kind of at the end, like after you've crafted the whole story, that's when you go and translate it and put all the subtitles in. Yeah, once they've read their script.

Heather Knox:

so I know it's now in stone, then I'll, just because we've typed it up and they've read it, which is another whole challenge that I've had as well. Blanca, we wrote it up but soon discovered her literacy wasn't very high, so I actually had to read her story line by line and she would echo it back and we recorded it, and then I had to take myself out of it. So then I took that script, translated it and then took out the bits to match the video.

Kristy Wolfe:

I've had similar experiences with English language learners. When I did it with my son, I would say a line and he would repeat it back, and so that same kind of thing, I think, just also speaks to the flexibility in digital storytelling. It doesn't matter who the storyteller is, it doesn't matter their literacy level. You can find ways to accommodate for any of those needs. So there's lots of ways to create a project that's going to suit the storyteller, so that they're comfortable with the process as well. Have you heard about Rev Capt captioning?

Heather Knox:

We've looked at the different captioning.

Kristy Wolfe:

Yeah, okay. I'm interested to know if Rev ends up being something that will work well for English to another language, because I've used it a few times now, at Mike's suggestion, for adding captions to a story where I have done what you're talking about, where I've gone in and added every caption on my own in Final Cut Pro, and it is unbelievably tedious. So, heather, I need to tell you this morning I finished a story, I uploaded it into Rev, it automatically did all of the captions and then I just checked them, I fixed a few things and then it downloads it, burned in For all our storytellers out there that are trying to figure out how can I caption this or how can I do this so that it's included and burned in without taking, because the first time I tried, it probably took me six hours to put captions in, which is no, no no, no, no, no no.

Kristy Wolfe:

So some of those like work efficiently type things, I want to be spending time working with the storyteller. I want to be spending time following their vision for the story and creating that story for them. I don't want to be spending time like tweaking captions.

Heather Knox:

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Kristy Wolfe:

So you would have done your own story when you were doing the level one training with common language and you would have worked with a volunteer. What was that experience like for you?

Heather Knox:

Well, I never finished my personal one because it was too emotional. And when I sat I don't know if you recall, but when you were in Guatemala I sat down and started to show you my the start of my personal story, which is was about my beloved dad and I just burst into tears and you said you're not ready. And I've honored that and I know it will come and I visit it, I revisit it and I work on it. So it's coming.

Kristy Wolfe:

I could see it when I was sitting next to you, how emotionally invested you were, how concerned you were about making it perfect, because this is something that you wanted to do for yourself and for your dad, and you can see those things and the emotion was so fresh that I think that is one of the skills about digital storytelling recognizing when a story is not ready yet. And I have personal stories that I am not ready to tell, even though I know I will. It's got to fit the right time, and I think I don't know if you've worked with any storytellers like that so far, other than like your own personal one, that it kind of they weren't ready or maybe you took a different direction when you started telling the story. Has that been an experience of yours?

Heather Knox:

I can tell you that when I did my first story so the volunteer that I was working with was Blanca, and Mike was on Zoom on the other end and he would type into the thing Are you done? Nope, not yet. She literally talked for two and a half hours, from the first question to when she finished. I don't type in Spanish normally, so here I am madly typing and recording just in case and going how is this going to be a three or four minute story? And it was really interesting. When I knew it was towards the end, she said something and I went boom, that's the story and that's the moment. Yeah, and I haven't experienced it exactly like that again, but that was reassuring Cause I was scared I was going to have to, I don't know, pull something out or take her in a different direction, but I just had to trust that she was. She needed to tell the whole story before we called it down to the essence of what we wanted to share or what she could share.

Kristy Wolfe:

That's interesting because I find when you're in workshop and there's multiple people and the timeframe is really narrow, that that is a lot harder. But normally when I'm co-creating a story like what you're talking about working one-on-one with the storyteller I the first two hour-hour session I we're just talking back and forth like I am just listening to exactly what you're talking about, I'm taking some notes, I'm listening for that kind of address, like the meaningful moment, something that they keep coming back to, and it's too bad that it was two hours into your conversation that you were like that. That's where it is, because that's when you really want to then focus on why is that important, what was it about that, how did you feel what was happening around you and start drawing into that particular story. But also when you're starting out as a digital storyteller, you are just like trying to figure out what to do next. I still am.

Kristy Wolfe:

Let's be honest, that's still the case because every storyteller that you're working with is different the way they approach it, the things that are important to them and so you're really taking the lead of your storyteller. What do you have coming up that's kind of like you're getting excited about? Is there anything in digital storytelling that's drawing your attention?

Heather Knox:

Well, I'm excited because in one of our professional development classes that we did through Common Language, I learned about guided autobiography and that was another aha moment when I learned about it, did my research and then I signed up and it started within a few weeks. So that's been going for the last three weeks and has been very inspiring for me to take storytelling or story listening in to another level and I can see how I'll be able to apply it. I have a story set up that I'm going to start doing remotely next week with a new employee at Project Somos. It's a young man, 23 years old that's running our boys program and it turns out he was one of the original little kids that was making eco bricks for the project. So eco bricks are empty plastic pop bottles full of soft plastic garbage, and the project has used 40,000 of them in the construction at the project and we were using local public schools. It was volunteer work for them, something they could contribute that would give back.

Heather Knox:

And so this young man, ricardo, was one of those boys and he I don't even know how old he is he was at the time so I haven't met him yet. All the staff are raving about him. He's like this bubble of energy and every time he shows up the project the kids just swarm him and we have a generous donor that pays for his salary to run this boys leadership program, because machismo is alive and well and horrible in Guatemala and we're hoping that we can steer boys in a new direction. So I'm super excited to meet Ricardo and do his story, and he seems super excited to be able to meet me and do this, and so we'll just schedule regular meetings until we get his story done, and I'm also hoping that I can mine through photo my photo albums from 13 years ago when we first arrived there, and maybe find a picture of him at one of the schools.

Kristy Wolfe:

Oh my gosh, that would be amazing. Oh, I'm looking forward to hearing more about this story because, as you've mentioned, the other stories are private. They are like they're more about this story because, um, as you've mentioned, the other stories are private. They are like they're more about those women's lives. Right, they, there's project somos is a piece of it, but they're more about their lives and this one.

Kristy Wolfe:

I know you were hoping to tell more of a story of project somos, which is when it feels a bit more public, so I'm I'm looking forward to seeing that story when you're done. Um, it also made me think about because when you were answering that question, you talked about Lisa and guided autobiography. You've brought up Maureen, you've brought up Crystal, and it just really hits me how much of our group of digital storytelling facilitators supports each other in different ways, so bringing different skills to the table. We all work in different areas, but we're learning from each other all the time and I think that is the incredible power in our collective of facilitators you kind of get to expand your skills based on what other people know as well. So I'm glad you brought up Guided by Autobiography. That podcast will go live before yours does, so it will be out there and people will be able to listen to that one as well.

Heather Knox:

Yeah, I'm excited too, and it was really nice to kind of connect with Lisa when she shared about guided autobiography with Dr Flora Brown and then we connected afterwards. So I really do appreciate the community aspect of common language.

Kristy Wolfe:

Yeah, that's been incredible, all right. So if somebody wanted to work with you if they especially because I've been talking about this I have someone in mind who has a Spanish language family that would like to tell a story, and so this is another part of the collective. That I think about is where are their fits for different people? You are our only Spanish language facilitator, so being able to, when a project doesn't fit my skill set to be able to hand a project to somebody else or collaborate with someone else on it. But if people do want to work with you, heather, how would they get ahold of you?

Heather Knox:

I think probably the best way is via email and I think I think we're I'm going to be a little different. I think there's a lot of focus on medical caretakers. I think my passion and my interest are around working with nonprofits and how storytelling can really help further their vision and maybe reach more people, find more donors. So I am excited to work with non-profits moving forward and I know there's a lot of overlap too, because a lot of organizations are health related or medical related well, that's interesting and I didn't mention it earlier because we were talking about different things.

Kristy Wolfe:

But you had told me about the non-profit storytelling conference. So I had gone when I was new with the Wolfpack Warriors Foundation, so I had gone one year and just like was raving about it. I had actually bought an early bird ticket to the next one but I couldn't swing the date so I didn't get to go again. But I did find that they have some elements within their conference that really fit with digital storytelling and that ethical side of storytelling and I know that's important to you from the nonprofit space, and nonprofits and fundraising often are based around storytelling and sharing impact and client stories and I think there's a lot of organizations that are doing a great job of that and there's a lot of organizations that aren't doing a great job of that.

Kristy Wolfe:

And so, heather, actually I wanted to tell you that, coming up, we had a grant to do digital stories with participants with a particular organization here in the Bow Valley Rocky Mountain Adaptive and we I was just on a meeting this morning where we're planning the screening for those participants to celebrate the donors for that organization and show them the impact, and the storytellers will be present and sharing their stories at that event. So there are organizations that are ready for this that aren't necessarily in healthcare, and I think that's a really good point. It is the way that I came to digital storytelling. Yes, I'm involved in healthcare, but I was also thinking about it from the nonprofit lens, and so that's something that I think there's a lot of space for as well, and you have such a background in that area.

Heather Knox:

Yeah, it really excites me and I think there's so much more potential and I think when the word gets out reaches more people, we're going to see more and more people jumping on board and recognizing the value of it.

Kristy Wolfe:

Yeah, it does take a little while because that first grant has now led to two more grants with nonprofits here in the Bow Valley, so I'm excited to see like, but it is. It does take time for word of mouth to get out, and digital storytelling is still a difficult concept for people to like wrap their head around. What exactly is that? What are you talking about? So I think that this podcast as one and these conversations can help people understand it a little bit. Feel free to share this widely.

Heather Knox:

I still struggle with how to explain it in a way that people completely understand it too.

Kristy Wolfe:

So yeah, the elevator pitch and I often say it's a two to four minute movie that's created with a storyteller around a meaningful moment in their life. We have them write the story, they voice the story, they find images whether they're personal or stock to go with it. There's editing techniques to make the flow of the video work and then we also add music to end up with this video. But I mean people will still say to me okay, so are you filming them? No, not filming them, so I get it. I have an elevator pitch to at least start the conversation and then see what questions people have. How do you explain it to the team at Project Somos I?

Heather Knox:

tell them that their story has value and that it's really good for our donors and supporters to get to know who you are and what you're doing at the project and where you came from, and I think it has helped that they saw the first one. I think they get it. I have one employee that had said she wanted to do it and I think she's. I don't think she's ready, so we're just waiting until she comes forward, um cause I know she knows that they can get you know difficult to share or even just to create.

Kristy Wolfe:

Well, I'm so glad you're conscious of that and that I mean I knew you would be, that's not even a question, but it it kind of keeps coming up, especially when you're you do need stories to continue to work on the fundraising and this, that side of things that you're doing. All right, heather, if you were going to tell a different digital story than the one you started with that you haven't finished yet. What meaningful moment do you think you would focus on?

Heather Knox:

Oh, my goodness it's. I would say it's changing day by day. Especially as I'm doing my guided autobiography, I want to do something about why we started the project and why the project is so important and dear to us and to those we serve and those that work on the team. I want, I want to tell that story.

Kristy Wolfe:

I want you to tell that story too. That's what I was hoping you would say.

Heather Knox:

Yeah, I want to write a book and I'm giving myself a break before that has to happen, so I think telling a story in two minutes might be a good challenge for me.

Kristy Wolfe:

And, like, that origin story idea of where did this come from from your perspective is something that you know can be shared for the project. Just just planting seeds. I know we've talked about this too, but, yeah, I think those origin stories are really helpful for nonprofits. When you have people that are moving in a different direction, who might have been a founder or one of the original people involved, you want to capture those stories before we no longer have that, and I think that's one way to think about it as well. I'll take that challenge. She's doing it. She's going to get on it. Yeah, after, after Ricardo's story maybe. Yes, well, heather, thank you so much for coming on. Is there anything else you want to tell us about digital storytelling before we close this down?

Heather Knox:

I guess I just want to say I'm really grateful to Mike for his leadership and his inspiration and for taking you know, taking this on, and really grateful to you for bringing your enthusiasm and leadership to Common Language. So yeah, you guys rock. Thanks, buddy, I appreciate that.

Mike Lang:

Thanks for listening to this episode of Leading Through Stories, presented by Common Language Digital Storytelling, facilitator training for health and wellness changemakers. Everyone has a story to tell and we would love to hear from you what resonated for you in this episode. What health and wellness story do you want to tell? You can email us at kristy@ commonlanguagedst. org or find us on Instagram at @L eadingT hroughS tories. Don't miss out on the next episode. Subscribe to leading through stories on your favorite podcast platform or sign up for our newsletter to get new episodes straight to your inbox. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time.

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