About Us

 

Storytelling to imagine new possibilities for personal and social transformation

Storytellers for Change (S4C) designs and facilitates learning experiences, programs, and communities where people come together to imagine new possibilities for personal and social transformation. Our work is rooted in healing-centered engagement, emergent strategy, and asset-based storytelling methodologies that center cultural wealth and collective wisdom.

Since 2010, we’ve partnered with thousands of leaders and organizations to connect individual stories to systems-level change and advance social justice.

  • We bring a storyteller mindset, practice, and approach to all of our work. We believe in the power of stories to build a just world.

  • We engage in the art and practice of designing and facilitating gatherings and learning experiences. We foster empathy, harvest collective wisdom, and facilitate racial equity and healing processes.

  • We are a multidisciplinary team with expertise in facilitation, narrative strategy, education, participatory engagement, digital storytelling, and leadership development.

 
 

About Us

 

Our Mission: To build an empathetic, inclusive and equitable world through storytelling.

 

Our Approach

This work is grounded in our Storyteller Praxis, which weaves together story-listening, story-crafting, and story-sharing, with a commitment to narrative as a practice of freedom and healing.

We design experiences that foster deep listening, critical dialogue, and exercise our collective agency—equipping communities to navigate complexity and drive meaningful change. Our approach is informed by an experiential learning process (Kolb, 1984) that is intersectional (Crenshaw, 1989), restorative (Ladson-Billings, 2015), liberatory (hooks, 1994), healing-centered (Ginwright, 2018), rooted in Critical Hope (Duncan-Andrade, 2008), and focused on our asset-based storytelling framework.

  • Effective storytellers are first and foremost empathetic story-listeners. Authentic listening driven by a commitment to equity and inclusion is what allows organizations and leaders to center systematically unheard and marginalized stories. Intentional acts and equitable processes of story-listening also generate radical empathy, build trust, and allows us to better understand each others’ hopes, needs, values, and strengths.

  • Crafting stories to illustrate as well as deliver impact requires a fundamental understanding of how to shape compelling narrative arcs as well as a commitment to co-creation principles. Stories crafted in dialogue and collaboration with the community will not only produce stronger narrative arcs, but also facilitate a community-centered process to uncover the critical stories that can bridge, heal, and transform society.

  • We share stories with the objective to inspire and mobilize the whole person, as well as entire communities and organizations, into action (heart, head, and hands). This requires an understanding of storytelling principles as well as a deep sense of connection to the values represented in the story being shared. Furthermore, story-sharing also means providing communities with resources and channels so they can amplify their own stories.

“We would 100% recommend working with Storytellers for Change! From communication to scheduling to the sessions themselves, our experience was overwhelmingly positive and made an impact on our participants.”
— Education First
“Storytellers for Change works at the intersection of talent, passion, empathy, care, insight, and utility. We learned a lot and gained valuable tools to use as educators, and was really captivated. It truly was a great experience!”
— Vermont Student Assistance Corporation
“Strong, bright, and deeply understanding community leaders. They took time to get to know our hopes and aligned the storytellers’ workshop along our goals and values to help us deepen our group connection and learning.”
— Bend the Arc

Our Values: Joy, Reciprocity, Justice, Community & Service

Meet the Team

  • Black and white photo of a Luis Ortega in a suit smiling.

    Luis Ortega (he/they)

    DIRECTOR & FOUNDER

    Luis (he/they) is a multidisciplinary storyteller, educator, facilitator, and narrative strategist, and the founder and director of Storytellers for Change. Over the last 20 years, he has partnered with leaders and organizations across sectors to harness narrative for equity, healing, and systems change.

    Luis is co-founder of the Expresión Storytelling Fellowship at the Latinx Education Collaborative, where he helps cultivate asset-based, healing-centered storytelling practices. His work has been featured by the Harvard DACA Seminar, HBO, the Kauffman Foundation, and the Seattle Design Festival.

    Luis holds degrees from the University of Washington and the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

  • Black and white photo of a smiling woman with long wavy hair, wearing a dark leather jacket and earrings, set against a bright blue background.

    Irina Ortega (she/her)

    SENIOR CONSULTANT

    Irina is a participatory design facilitator, researcher, anthropologist, and environmental justice consultant. At Storytellers for Change, Irina is the Manager of Training and Participatory Strategies. In this role, she oversees the design and implementation of our storytelling training programs and participatory learning and action consulting projects. 

    She has over a decade of experience co-designing social impact projects in various regions of Mexico and USA, facilitating leadership and storytelling workshops. Some of her clients have included Isla Urbana, Bath University, Juarez Strategic Plan, Cantaro Azul, Neighborhood House, Conexiones Climaticas, and Anchorage University, amongst others. In 2015, Irina co-founded SAYA, a non-profit organization based in Mexico driven by a mission to empower communities through participatory design and leadership development.

  • A man wearing glasses, a suit, and a white shirt smiling against a bright blue background.

    Domonique Meeks (he/him)

    PARTNER & COLLABORATOR

    Domonique is a storyteller, facilitator, data scientist, and entrepreneur. At Storytellers for Change, Domonique is the co-creator of our Storytelling for Changemakers cohort program.

    Domonique’s work focuses on community-centered storytelling, digital access, economic development, and the democratization of media. He is also the co-founder of IDLE Seattle and the co-host of the No Blueprint Podcast.

    A proud alumnus of Central Washington University and the University of Washington, Domonique's academic prowess is complemented by his practical experience and community roots. Beyond his professional pursuits, Domonique values quality time with his family and immerses himself in the stunning natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest.