My name is Piper Hendricks and I appreciate your interest in Stories Change Power. Over the curious course of my career from corporate lawyer to human rights litigator to documentary filmmaker to advocacy communications professional, two critical truths have emerged:

First, to create a just, equitable, and peaceful world, many laws, policies, and systems must change.

Second, we will never achieve that change without skillful calls for change.

I’ve worked with and within a hefty cross section of organizations around the world that promote needed change with huge hearts but small budgets and infinite enthusiasm but finite time. I’ve seen the result of budgets too small to support advocacy communications activities and time too finite to support team members in those roles: opportunities are missed and needed change doesn’t happen.

Over the course of conversations with new and seasoned advocacy communications professionals, nonprofit leadership, and nonprofit funders as I prepared to launch Stories Change Power, three critical needs emerged: 

• Preparation: New advocacy communications professionals feel deeply motivated but not fully prepared to thrive in this emerging specialty, particularly when they do not report to someone with communications experience.
• Funding: Advocacy communications efforts are not sufficiently funded; whether due to organizational prioritization or lack of clarity around the time and cost of effective communications, neither general operating nor grant-specific funds allow even seasoned professionals to reach organizations’ full communications potential.
• Collaboration: Advocacy communications professionals at all levels feel lonely (particularly in one-person shops), siloed (regardless of communications team size), and disheartened by the lack of collaboration with colleagues (whether due to unawareness or unwillingness).

Around the time my professional dreams coalesced in the field of advocacy communications, the World Bank issued a report that still gives me nightmares, which can be summed up in headlines like "The solutions to all our problems may be buried in PDFs that nobody reads." 

Why invest time, talent, and funding into researching solutions only to not have them implemented? Why thoroughly understand a problem but not ensure those with the power to fix it are persuaded to do so?

I believe deep in my bones that organizations advocating change are only as effective as their advocacy communications efforts. And I know many of those organizations do not have the budget or bandwidth to train new team members in the emerging field of advocacy communications, nor the organization-wide collaboration to translate internal work into external impact.

Which is why I created Stories Change Power.

Whether we recognize it or not, laws, policies, and systems shape our lives every day. We equip people at the frontlines of efforts to promote a just, equitable, and peaceful world to use advocacy communications to power change. Beyond advocacy and ethical storytelling, we promote bridging divides across the country, collaboration across organizations, community across cohorts, and meaning across individual lives.

Along my professional journey, I’ve been called “audacious” many times – and each time I took it as a compliment. The audacious goal of Stories Change Power is to upend the status quo and help mission-driven organizations fully harness the power of advocacy communications, knowing that doing so will catalyze change for every individual, family, and community those organizations serve.

Thank you for your interest and for joining us in creating a more just, equitable, and peaceful world,

Piper Hendricks

Executive Director