Virtual Trainings
The trainings listed on this page are open to anyone interested in these topics. It’s a great opportunity to build skills alongside peers wrestling with the same big questions as you. The registration FAQs below provide technical help registering for sessions. There are also answers to questions about who should participate, how to register multiple people from a single organization, accessibility, and more.
Upcoming Trainings
There are three virtual storytelling trainings being offered in fall 2025 on gathering informed consent, sharing and ceding storytelling power, and crafting empathetic narratives. Want to register for all three trainings? Use this link to register for the series and save 20% off the registration rate.
Fall 2025 Storytelling Series (Save 20% by Registering for all 3 Trainings at Once)
Description
Registering for the fall 2025 series gets you a seat in three virtual trainings:
Leading Consent Conversations: Strategies to Understand Boundaries, Elicit Perspective, and Empower Storytellers (4 hours) on Thursday, October 23, 2025 from 12:30 - 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time.
Amplifying Without Overpowering: Taking Steps to Cede Storytelling Control & Deepen Partnerships (2 hours) on Wednesday, November 12, 2025, from 2 - 4 p.m. Eastern Time.
Sympathy Leads to Charity, Empathy Leads to Change: Crafting Whole-Person Narratives (4 hours) on Wednesday, December 10, 2025, from 12:30 - 4:30 p.m.
By registering for all 3 trainings at once, you save 20% off the registration rate. ($100 instead of $125. The discount is already reflected in the price. You do not need a discount code.)
Who should attend this series?
This series is perfect for anyone working in a position where they directly ask clients, patients, or community members to share their stories and/or anyone who works with those individuals to document their stories.
How do I register 2+ people from my organization for the series?
The series registration fee is per person. If you’d like to register more than one person from your organization for the series, please enter the number of people you are registering in the “quantity” field below before adding the series to your cart. If you want to register more than three people from your team, please reach out about custom trainings for groups instead.
Will you send me a Zoom link?
Yes. After registering for the series, you will receive calendar invites within 48 hours for each of the three fall trainings. The calendar invites will contain the Zoom links.
Amplifying Without Overpowering: Taking Steps to Cede Storytelling Control & Deepen Partnerships (2 hours)
Description
Nonprofit, legal services, and healthcare organizations frequently tell stories in response to an immediate need—a reporter calls, an event is coming up, or a funder requests one. And then the organization goes looking for an individual story that matches the request. When this happens, the narrative—and the goal for sharing it—is predetermined before the person at the story’s center was ever involved.
In this webinar, we’ll look at ways to move beyond this posture of reactive storytelling and explore ways to involve individuals and communities in setting your organization’s storytelling agenda in more meaningful ways. We’ll touch on creating speakers bureaus and storytelling groups, investing in documentary-style projects, re-allocating funds to support existing storytelling projects in your community, and other ways of ceding storytelling control.
Format
This “enhanced webinar” will take place over Zoom. Half of the time there will be a presentation where participants are encouraged to turn off cameras and listen. The other half of the time we will be engaged in conversations and activities that require active participation.
Who should attend this webinar?
If you’re thinking how to change the culture of how your organization tells stories, this webinar is for you.
How do I register 2+ people from my organization?
The registration fee is per person. If you’d like to register more than one person from your organization, please enter the number of people you are registering in the “quantity” field below. If you want to register more than three people from your team, please reach out about custom trainings for groups instead.
Will you send me a Zoom link?
Yes. After registering, you will receive a calendar invite within 48 hours that contains the training Zoom link.
Sympathy Leads to Charity, Empathy Leads to Change: Crafting Whole-Person Narratives (4 hours)
Description
Stories that evoke empathy (rather than sympathy) reveal a whole person and don’t reduce someone to a problem or a circumstance. They center the person with lived experience rather than an organization that has provided care or assistance. And they offer context to help the reader or listener understand not just what happened, but why.
During this interactive and skills-based workshop, participants will explore these ideas in-depth, and practice crafting a story that emphasizes each of these elements from a provided interview transcript. After sharing their stories in pairs and small groups, we will discuss the ways that participants’ experiences and perspectives led to the creation of different narratives, even when using the same source material, and what this means for working with patients, clients, and community members to document their stories.
Format
This is a workshop, not a webinar. We’ll spend the entire time doing activities in pairs, small groups, and as a full group, so your participation is critical and attendance for the full workshop is required (i.e., no late arrivals). The training is 4-hours long, which will include a break in the middle. Spaces are limited to keep this workshop small and interactive.
Who should attend this workshop?
This workshop is perfect for anyone working in a position where they are writing stories for their organizations or are working directly with clients, patients, or community members to document and share their stories.
How do I register 2+ people from my organization?
The registration fee is per person. If you’d like to register more than one person from your organization, please enter the number of people you are registering in the “quantity” field below. If you want to register more than three people from your team, please reach out about custom trainings for groups instead.
Will you send me a Zoom link?
Yes. After registering, you will receive a calendar invite within 48 hours that contains the training Zoom link.
Registration FAQs
How to register
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Click on the training you want to register for.
Select “1” under quantity.
Click the “register (add to cart)” button.
Repeat steps 1-3 for all the trainings you want to register for.
Click the shopping cart icon in the website header.
Checkout.
You will receive a calendar invite with a Zoom link within 48 hours of registering.
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Yes. Enter the number of people you are registering in the “quantity” field before adding the training to your cart. The registration fee is per person.
No more than 3 people per organization can register for a training. If you want to register more than three people from your team, please reach out about custom trainings for groups instead.
Technical information
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I am based in Boston. All training times listed are Eastern Time.
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All trainings are held on Zoom.
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It varies depending based on length and topic. Typically sessions are between $25 - $50 per person, per training. The exact price is listed on each training’s registration page.
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You will receive a calendar invite within 48 hours of registering. The calendar link will have the Zoom link.
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I do my best to ensure everyone is able to fully participate in the trainings I run. What does that mean?
Captions are enabled on Zoom.
PowerPoint slides work with adaptive technologies.
Information is shared in multiple ways. For example, chat box activities are also read allowed. Visual content is also described.
I make sure everyone is muted outside of discussions to minimize background noise. I also wear headphones and use a microphone to ensure my audio quality is as good as possible.
I incorporate different types of activities and content to respond to different learning styles.
I ask participants a week before a training if anyone has any accessibility needs I should be aware of.
I am always trying to do better to make my learning spaces welcoming and accessible for all. And I invite questions and ideas for how to better support participants.
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No. In these trainings, I ask people to tell stories, ask big questions, and experiment with new practices they have never tried before. I’ve noticed that participants are much more engaged when I don’t record sessions.
Format and participants
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Anyone interested in this work. Having diverse professional and lived experiences in the (virtual) room makes the sessions richer.
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No. The trainings are highly interactive and each activity builds on the previous one. It is hard to catch up in the middle of a session and it can disrupt the experience of other participants.
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2-hour “enhanced webinars” introduce information on a specific aspect of storytelling, get folx to think about and unpack practices at their organization, and discuss some proposed strategies in the context of their work. These trainings typically involve 45 minutes of activities and discussion, 45 minutes of presentation, and 30 minutes of Q&A.
4-hour skill-building workshops help folx develop and practice a specific storytelling skill. These sessions are almost entirely activity-based, with no more than 15 minutes of presentation.
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I purposely keep these trainings small to ensure the best experience and discussions possible.
Enhanced webinars = max 40 people
Workshops = max 14 people