Cranking Up Social Capital

What if sharing your story meant you could change the way someone felt about compassion, determination, honesty, or hope. And what if listening to someone else’s story helped nurture a spirit of respect, acceptance, trust, even friendship. These were ideas central to StoryLine—a project of the Echo Network and an initiative of The Winston-Salem Foundation.

StoryLine was founded on a simple, yet powerful, premise: When we share our stories, and listen openly to the stories of others, we expand our understanding of who we are as a community. We discover what we share in common and begin to understand the diverse experiences that shape our lives and community. It’s a beginning…toward creating a more connected community.

Tasked with an assignment to facilitate the marketing of social capital in our community, M Creative proposed a local version of StoryCorp— the wildly successful oral history project that airs weekly on National Public Radio. With a renovated bookmobile-once-ice-cream-truck now mobile recording studio and a dedicated volunteer group of over 100 individuals, StoryLine traveled our community collecting the rich and diverse stories of individuals, families, and friends. The stories were edited in English and Spanish and aired weekly on four diverse community radio stations.