Storytelling is a superpower. It has the ability to shape culture, amplify unheard voices, and spark meaningful change. At its core, storytelling helps us all understand each other better, as we form closer ties that enable stronger communities.
We’ve had the honor of collaborating on some amazing storytelling, centered on our home geography of the Carolina Piedmont. It all started with capturing buried and little told stories of the Black and Indigenous people of Hillsborough, North Carolina, a town where we’ve both lived and worked for over a decade.
We recorded for posterity stories of resilience, entrepreneurship, integration, faith, and care for the community. We met scholars, and we met descendants of some of the greatest people that Orange County, North Carolina will ever know.
The result of that collaboration was the North Carolina Governor’s Award-winning Telling the Full Story. We were off and running.
Since Telling the Full Story, we’ve had the honor of joining the ensemble cast of historians and creatives who are marking an amazing milestone in our nation’s history. America 250 brought us together once again, and we brought our powerful collaborators together to focus on these same Black and Indigenous communities. Common Ground in Orange County marked their journeys from pre-contact with colonial settlers through the Civil War, answering the question as to when these people became fully American.
Now, it’s time to tell more stories. The story of all of us, as Americans. That’s where Blue Ridge Collaborative comes in.
The mission of Blue Ridge Collaborative is to uncover and amplify untold stories through arts, culture, and education. These stories, which are often overlooked or pushed to the margins, have the power to challenge assumptions, reshape conversations, and build a more inclusive, empathetic world.
We’ve created BRC with the intentionality that meets the moment we’re in and the future this moment is shaping. We’re taking on the challenges and opportunities presented by a change in the funding landscape for impact work. We’re leveraging a diverse network of dozens of storytellers spanning virtually every creative discipline. And in a time when the herd chases the artificial, we’re centering on the spellbinding power of humanity.
At its heart, BRC starts with the story. From there, the team determines the best way to bring it into the world, whether that’s a film, podcast, book, exhibit, or another creative medium.
As a nonprofit, BRC is designed to support creators directly collecting donations, grants, and corporate sponsorships. The mix of funding models, on a project-by-project basis, means that more visions are realized and more stories told. BRC doesn’t stop there, as we run efficient, economical production of creative works, whether it’s a documentary film, museum exhibit, book, or interactive digital experience. Finally, we have the network resources to appropriately and powerfully promote our projects.
We aim to make Blue Ridge Collaborative a platform for progress. Many of those who believe in the exceptionalism of the American experiment trace that belief in our founding. We think the greatness of our people reveals itself over time. We aim to capture that revelation, showing how our people exhibited joy and resilience in tribulation, to modern-day renaissance eras that are redefining communities as places where we can all grow, together.
The two of us, and our amazing board of directors, share a belief that great stories don’t tell themselves. They require vision, resources, and champions willing to push beyond the expected. Get ready to see work that celebrates the people who persevere for the good of us all, disrupt the status quo, and continue to bend the arc of American progress.
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