About Me
I’m a born and raised Brooklynite, who has spent the past 18 years building programs and revenue sources for great nonprofits. On weekends, I can be found exploring playgrounds, and recipe-testing with my husband and two young kids. A little-known fact is that I was offered a position at StoryCorps while in active labor with my oldest. I was so excited I almost answered!
What is your role and how long have you been in this position?
I have been Managing Director of StoryCorps Studios & Strategic Partnerships for almost a year and at StoryCorps for four and a half years.
What does your job entail?
I lead StoryCorps’ newly rebranded partnerships division. StoryCorps Studios partners with many organizations to tell their brand’s story through the voices of real people. I also oversee StoryCorps’ corporate sponsorships and a fantastic team of eight. We work with organizations across sectors: from Google and Delta, to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, to name a few.
What are the rewards of your job?
Working on strategic partnerships for a mission that is as relevant and needed as StoryCorps’ is a dream. StoryCorps’ model of storytelling is designed to uplift voices of people who oftentimes do not think of themselves as storytellers. When we partner to bring this model to organizations, the results are powerful! It’s more than the audience engagement metrics (even though they are powerful too!) StoryCorps is often referred to by our partners as the gold standard in storytelling. We hear time and time again that this is the best project partners have worked on in their careers. Finally, as many of my colleagues have noted, my StoryCorps staff is wonderful. I’m especially grateful for my team—they are such brilliant, innovative, fun, and insightful people.
What are the challenges of your job?
There are so many opportunities and ways to partner that sometimes it’s hard to determine how we can have the most impact possible. Challenges always come with opportunity, but it’s one of the best challenges an organization can have.
Why should everyone record a story with StoryCorps?
There is truly no experience like it. There is something so intensely human about sitting across from someone you care about and being deeply vulnerable in asking and sharing. I recorded with my grandmother, and while she has told me countless family stories over the years, she shared so much more personally in the conversation. I left the space with even more admiration and love for her, and a record of her beautiful voice I know will only grow in value as I age.
What is your favorite StoryCorps story?
Currently, Q&A—there’s so much power and brilliance in that mother—I just want to take her strength with me on my own parenting journey. At a recent conference that I spoke at, two moms came up to tell me how inspiring that story was for them, as parents of kids on the autism spectrum.