An alternative to journalism as a way of collaborating in written storytelling are advocacy outlets like Grist and ProPublica. These are publications that are focused on uplifting frontline community voices. Working with writers from an advocacy outlet allows you a similar outcome to traditional media coverage, while knowing the writer and publication have a vested interest in highlighting your perspective.
Larger Organizations and Nonprofits
Institutions like universities and large non-profits might seek community partners for many reasons. Maybe they want to apply for grant funding that requires a community partner, or maybe they want to share frontline stories on their channels. The ethos behind these interests will be different for every collaborator. Some might truly believe that sharing their larger platforms and capacity with frontline groups is a valuable investment, while others might be looking to extract a story from a frontline group to establish their legitimacy as an EJ-minded institution or organization.
It is particularly important in this kind of collaboration to be skeptical of your collaborator’s intentions, particularly when there is a power dynamic between a small, less-funded community group and a large organization or institution.
Some things to keep in mind if you choose to pursue this kind of collaborator:
Before agreeing to a collaboration, think about what is non-negotiable for your group and community. What are your core values when collaborating? Maybe there are specific boundaries you want to set up around:
Engaging with respect
Relationship management – maybe you only want to interact with a few trusted people at your collaborator organization
How your collaborator can and cannot share the storytelling work you produce together
Beware of a culture of urgency. Large entities with tons of capacity operate at very fast speeds.
If an organization emails you looking to collaborate on Monday and you don’t have a chance to reply before they follow up on Thursday, you should take note of that. If your group operates at a slower pace and doesn’t have the capacity to keep up with more urgent deadlines, that might not be the right collaborator for you.
Ask yourself: What am I going to give up in this partnership? Is that something that my group needs to consent to, or that my community need to consent to?
Some signs of a good collaboration:
Your collaborator prioritizes trust over speed.
High urgency and quick review traditionally determine the timelines of external collaborators (e.g. NGOs, journalists, policymakers). Meanwhile, many frontline organizations work on multiple campaigns or issues at any given time, with small (sometimes volunteer) bodies of staff. When external collaborators rush CBO staff to engage in a project, they can assume importance over the existing workload of their community collaborators, breaking trust in the process. Moving at the speed of trust means seeing your collaborators (CBO staff and External Storytellers alike) on a person-to-person level and committing to building a process built from strong relationships.
Your collaborator seeks active consent throughout every part of the storytelling process.
Consent is a participatory process, rather than a one-way street. It is specific, reversible, and ongoing. Consent is not coerced or assumed, but open-ended. Collaborators should understand and accept that consent can be retracted, and honor when people want to pull things.
Your collaborator makes an active effort to get to know you and your community, and to incorporate you into the storytelling process early.
If a group is seeking to collaborate with you with a significant amount of thought and work already put into the project, that is a red flag. This is an indication that this collaborator isn’t looking to work with you to tell your story, but rather looking to extract a story to fit a project serving their mission.
An external collaborator with good intentions will make an effort to get to know your community. A few members of their team will travel to visit your community and express curiosity beyond the story you are looking to tell together.
A good external collaborator will ensure your community benefits from the product of the storytelling, which might mean helping host a screening of the video you created together locally in your community.
Media Makers (CALL OUT)
Both within your local community and across the country are freelance artists and other media makers looking to collaborate on storytelling initiatives. If you have the financial capacity to contract a media maker such as a videographer or visual artist to help your storytelling, this can be a great opportunity to support artists from your own community or from other frontline communities.
The KinTheory initiative is one database of Indigenous creatives across the world open to collaborating.
