“We don’t want just some typical speaker training and we don’t just a ‘storytelling workshop,’” she told us. We got it.

Rachel Holmes, Director of Advocacy and Community Engagement for The Food Group, an anti-hunger organization based in St. Paul, Minnesota, became certified in LPA coaching methods to support advocates with lived experience of food insecurity. She recently shared with us how storytelling-for-advocacy fits into her work with The Food Group.

“I think that people who go through the program are just more thoughtful about their advocacy. I can see the change in the advocates week to week as they're getting and hearing the feedback.”

“I've watched it happen for people in real time. Even on Zoom, you can see it. It's that moment where all of a sudden the light goes on—and they see the core of their advocacy come to life.”

One way to obstruct a community's future is to deny or erase its past.

Social Tinkering recently engaged Living Proof Advocacy to explore how community members’ stories from lived experience could help advocate for stronger social connections, and we asked their director, Jeanette Langston, about the experience and the organization’s work. 

—and it’s a great example of “flipping the narrative.”

“By sharing their stories, they educate others on the harms surrounding gambling and promote hope in others that recovery is possible.”