Lisa Nelson-Haynes Appointed Chief Programs Officer at StoryCorps
We are pleased to announce that Lisa Nelson-Haynes has been named StoryCorps’ Chief Programs Officer (CPO), effective immediately. In her new role as a member of the StoryCorps executive team, having served as interim CPO since February 2023, Lisa will oversee the development, implementation, and scaling of the organization’s existing interview-collection programs, including One Small Step, the Military Voices Initiative, the StoryCorps Mobile Tour, and the newly reimagined education outreach programs, and collaborating with all areas of the organization to maximize StoryCorps’ public service. She will also oversee the Learning & Engagement, Recording & Archive, and Research & Evaluation departments.
“Since she joined StoryCorps last year, Lisa has simply been a force. Her passionate and collaborative spirit, keen understanding of the power of personal narrative, and commitment to inclusive, sustained community partnership make her the ideal leader for StoryCorps’ dynamic and multifaceted programs,” said StoryCorps CEO Sandra Clark. “During this momentous anniversary year, we not only celebrate our accomplishments but look forward to a bright future. Driven by the belief that everyone’s story matters, Lisa will broaden the reach and impact of our programs in the years ahead.”
“Like so many people, I’ve been a fan of StoryCorps since they first started sharing their stories on NPR’s Morning Edition,” said Lisa. “I’m proud to be a part of an organization that is both intentional about and responsive to our country’s need to move beyond the constant din of social media platforms and reconnect through the sharing of our humanity with our stories. Over the coming years, I look forward to helping lead the expansion of StoryCorps’ work in innovative and strategic ways, building upon our loyal public media audience.”
Lisa joined StoryCorps in October 2022 as Managing Director of Program & Innovation, quickly becoming a vital member of the organization’s staff. She has been instrumental in shaping the design and securing funding for major new initiatives launching in the coming year, and has worked to develop other important partnerships for StoryCorps. She has also created and facilitated racial and identity literacy workshops to provide additional professional development support to StoryCorps’ National and One Small Step facilitators.
Prior to joining StoryCorps, Lisa was Executive Director of Philadelphia Young Playwrights (PYP), where she oversaw the vision, operations, and fundraising for the organization. During her tenure at PYP, she was the co-creator and executive producer of the organization’s award-winning podcast Mouthful, exploring the experiences and perspectives of young people to spark important and timely conversations about big ideas and issues.
Lisa’s work has long centered around encouraging others to exercise self-agency through shaping and sharing their own narratives. An award-winning storyteller, she has facilitated digital storytelling workshops for more than 20 years, and has created and facilitated digital storytelling initiatives for Pennsylvania’s Humanities Council, the Barra Foundation, and Drexel University’s Center for Nonviolence and Social Justice. Her visioning for StoryCorps of programming that offers deeper community engagement, while being timely, accessible and relevant, is grounded in her vast professional experiences, including as a racial literacy facilitator for Lion’s Story.
Karen Anglade Joins StoryCorps as Managing Director, Human Resources
We are pleased to announce that Karen Anglade is joining StoryCorps as Managing Director, Human Resources. A native New Yorker, Anglade most recently was Director of HR and Administration at the Center for NYC Neighborhoods.
Anglade discovered her passion for mission-driven work in 2008 as an HR practitioner for the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Miami, following a 10-year career in advertising in Manhattan and a stint in the mortgage industry in South Florida. In 2014, she became HR Manager at the YMCA of South Florida. After graduating with a Masters in HR Management from Nova Southeastern University, Anglade moved back to Manhattan in 2017, where she has held a number of HR positions, including HR Generalist at Boyce Technologies and HR Manager at Upright Citizens Brigade, before joining the Center for NYC Neighborhoods. Anglade’s philosophy is that HR should work hard to take care of its people so that the organization can thrive.
Anglade received her undergraduate degree from Baruch College. The daughter of Haitian parents, she speaks fluent French and Kreyòl.
Anglade’s official start date with StoryCorps is February 21.
Christopher Norris Joins StoryCorps as Strategic Adviser to the CEO
We are pleased to announce that Christopher Norris is joining StoryCorps’ executive team as Strategic Adviser to the CEO, where he will coordinate alignment across the organization to maximize StoryCorps’ public service and revenue opportunities. Norris is known for his innovative approaches to journalism, which are deeply rooted in community engagement, and is highly regarded as a brand builder and cross-enterprise, entrepreneurial thinker.
Norris previously was Managing Editor for Community & Engagement at NPR/PBS affiliate WHYY, Philadelphia’s largest public media station, where he cultivated and managed relationships with philanthropic institutions across the region and built out a portfolio of innovative community outreach programs, including the News and Information Community Exchange (N.I.C.E.). N.I.C.E.—a mutual aid journalism collective that organizes, supports, and develops grassroots news and information creators—was nationally recognized as a Local That Works model. Norris also produced premium live events at the station, produced and hosted community conversations on WHYY TV 12, and oversaw the rebranding and rollout of a citywide civic dialogue program that brings together politically and culturally diverse households for conversation and problem-solving.
Before joining WHYY, Norris worked with a diverse group of media outlets in Philadelphia. He hosted “Wake Up With WURD,” the flagship morning broadcast for Pennsylvania’s only Black talk radio station; wrote guest opinion pieces for The Philadelphia Inquirer and served as a sociopolitical commentator at 105.3 WDAS FM, an urban adult contemporary radio station owned and operated by iHeartMedia.
In 2009, Norris founded Techbook Online, a grassroots news and information company, and scaled it to become the most active publisher on Comcast’s PhillyinFocus.com, a former website dedicated to local content. During his 10-year stint as CEO, Norris became the first grassroots publisher in Philadelphia to distribute original content through Apple News. He brokered a strategic partnership between Comcast and the City of Philadelphia’s Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services, resulting in the development of a digital channel to distribute mental health resources and information.
Also known as “Flood the Drummer,” Norris is a professional drummer, a voracious consumer of conservative and liberal media, a lifelong fan of pro wrestling, and an avid student of how that industry has grown audience, community, personalities, and revenue.
Norris’ official start date with StoryCorps is February 13.
Press Release: The Great Thanksgiving Listen 2022
STORYCORPS’ 2022 GREAT THANKSGIVING LISTEN ENCOURAGES PEOPLE NATIONWIDE TO RECORD CONVERSATIONS OVER THE HOLIDAY USING THE NEW STORYCORPS MOBILE APP
Recordings Become Part of American History at the Library of Congress
Brooklyn, New York, November 1, 2022—This Thanksgiving, StoryCorps, the national nonprofit organization dedicated to recording, preserving, and sharing the stories of people of all backgrounds and beliefs, invites people nationwide to use the organization’s new, free mobile app or its remote recording platform, StoryCorps Connect, to record a conversation with an elder, mentor, friend, or someone they admire. With permission, each interview is saved in the online, publicly-accessible StoryCorps Archive and in the special StoryCorps collection at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, the world’s single largest collection of human voices. Launched in 2015, when StoryCorps created its first mobile app, the annual Great Thanksgiving Listen is the organization’s most important public engagement event, generating approximately 13,000 recordings each year.
While everyone is encouraged to participate in The Great Thanksgiving Listen this holiday season, teachers nationwide have adopted the program as part of their curriculum, and thousands of students (age 13 and over)—from middle school to college—are participating. In particular, The Great Thanksgiving Listen allows students to engage in intergenerational conversations, asking elders about who they are, what they’ve learned in life, and how they want to be remembered. To foster participation among people of all backgrounds, StoryCorps has created a free toolkit, available at thegreatlisten.org. It includes everything families and students need to know about how to record a StoryCorps interview and archive it for the Library of Congress. For classrooms, specific activities within the toolkit align with Common Core Standards.
Dave Isay, Founder and President of StoryCorps, said, “The Great Thanksgiving Listen invites people nationwide to honor someone in their lives by recording their story for future generations. The new app makes the experience more accessible and seamless. We hope the country will join us in recording the wisdom of humanity while reminding those they love and admire how much their lives and stories matter.”
Recording the Great Thanksgiving Listen Interviews with the StoryCorps App
This year, StoryCorps launched major updates to the StoryCorps App, available in the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. The app allows anyone, anywhere, to conveniently prepare for, record, and archive a high-quality, in-person StoryCorps interview. Updates to the new version build on StoryCorps’ first app’s platform and reliability, with an enhanced user experience that includes more of StoryCorps’ rich content: its weekly broadcasts, animations, podcast seasons, and more. The app also seamlessly enables users to explore StoryCorps’ rich content, curate personalized interview collections, and share StoryCorps stories on social media. In addition, users now have access to StoryCorps Communities, enabling them to add their interview to a community they’ve joined, as well as see content from other community members.
People who are interested in participating in the Great Thanksgiving Listen, but are not in the same room, can use StoryCorps’ video-based remote recording platform, StoryCorps Connect.
Since 2015, the Great Thanksgiving Listen has encouraged people across the country to use the StoryCorps App, which the organization created with the $1M TED Prize awarded that year to StoryCorps Founder and President Dave Isay. StoryCorps had already gathered more than 50,000 recordings in its traditional recording booths. Yet StoryCorps has a much bigger aspiration: to become an institution that touches the life of every American. The 2015 pilot version of The Great Thanksgiving Listen revealed the initiative’s potential to help StoryCorps reach that ultimate goal. Over the 2015 Thanksgiving holiday, StoryCorps recorded more interviews than it had in its 12-year history to date. The Wall Street Journal wrote, “Imagine it: During the holidays, instead of using gadgets to ignore each other, we might use them as an excuse to look each other in the eye and listen.”
The Great Thanksgiving Listen 2022 is made possible by Fetzer Institute and the Gruber Family Foundation.
About StoryCorps
Founded in 2003, StoryCorps has given over 600,000 people, in all 50 states, the chance to record interviews about their lives. The award-winning organization preserves the recordings in its archive at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, the largest single collection of human voices ever gathered, and shares select stories with the public through StoryCorps’ podcast, NPR broadcasts, animated shorts, digital platforms, and best-selling books. These powerful human stories reflect the vast range of American experiences, engender empathy and connection, and remind us how much more we have in common than what divides us. StoryCorps is especially committed to capturing and amplifying voices least heard in the media. The StoryCorps MobileBooth, an Airstream trailer that has been transformed into a traveling recording booth, crisscrosses the country year-round gathering the stories of people nationwide. Learn more at storycorps.org.