• $1,000,000Active Strategy

  2012 (Duration 1 year)

  MacArthur Award for Creative & Effective Institutions

  BROOKLYN, NEW YORK — StoryCorps' mission is to provide Americans of all backgrounds with the opportunity to record, share, and preserve the stories of their lives. Since 2003, it has given more than 80,000 people the chance to record interviews, pass wisdom from one generation to the next, and leave a legacy for future generations through its archive at the Library of Congress. It shares selected excerpts of these stories through broadcasts on National Public Radio to an audience of some 14 million weekly listeners, and through animated shorts, its popular website, podcasts, and best-selling books. These powerful stories illustrate our shared humanity.

• $400,000Active Strategy

  2011 (Duration 2 years)

  Media

  BROOKLYN, NEW YORK — StoryCorps documents the lives of ordinary people with an emphasis on those most often not included in the public record. Individual Americans interview their family members, neighbors or friends and record these interviews on compact discs. StoryCorps interviews tell stories of uncelebrated people and their lives that help cross cultural divides and provide the small personal tales that best tell our history. Interview excerpts are broadcast each week on NPR's Morning Edition and on other radio programs, podcasts, and the Internet and the collection of 40,000 interviews is housed in the Library of Congress and is available to researchers.

The MacArthur Foundation awarded StoryCorps $1,400,000 between 2010 and 2013.