Erasing the Distance Competitors

The Moth is a global storytelling nonprofit with the mission to inspire people to listen and share openly, think and feel deeply, and expand their understanding of one another through personal storytelling. Since 1997, The Moth has presented more than 70,000 true stories—told live and without notes—in 11 countries, across 4 continents. Today, The Moth produces 600+ live shows annually, as well as the Peabody Award-winning The Moth Radio Hour, and the popular The Moth Podcast. Through workshops for students, educators, adults, advocates, and professionals, The Moth guides thousands of new storytellers each year in finding and sharing their own voices.

PFLAG is an organization of LGBTQ+ people, parents, families, and allies who work together to create an equitable and inclusive world. We are hundreds of thousands of people and hundreds of chapters from coast to coast who are leading with love to support families, educate allies, and advocate for just, equitable, and inclusive legislation and policies. Since our founding in 1973, PFLAG works every day to ensure LGBTQ+ people everywhere are safe, celebrated, empowered and loved. Straight for Equality is an outreach and education program created in 2007 by PFLAG National to empower new allies who, unlike a more traditional PFLAG member, don’t necessarily have a family connection to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community. Straight for Equality provides information, resources, and learning sessions that help allies understand their role in supporting and advocating for LGBTQ people, and make sure they have the opportunity to share their strong and powerful voices in support of equality.

Founded in 2003 by Dave Isay, StoryCorps has given people of all backgrounds and beliefs, in thousands of towns and cities in all 50 states, the chance to record interviews about their lives. The organization preserves the recordings in its archive at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, the largest single collection of human voices ever gathered, and shares select stories with the public through StoryCorps’ podcast, NPR broadcasts, animated shorts, digital platforms, and best-selling books. These powerful human stories reflect the vast range of American experiences, wisdom and values; engender empathy and connection; and remind us how much more we have in common than what divides us. StoryCorps is especially committed to capturing and amplifying voices least heard in the media. The StoryCorps MobileBooth, an Airstream trailer the organization has transformed into a traveling recording booth, crisscrosses the country year-round in order to gather the stories of people nationwide. With the 2015 TED Prize awarded to Dave Isay, StoryCorps launched a free mobile app that puts the StoryCorps experience entirely in the hands of users and enables anyone, anywhere to record meaningful conversations with another person and upload the audio to the Library of Congress. StoryCorps also records interviews in its permanent StoryBooths located in Chicago and Atlanta. Recording an interview in a StoryCorps booth couldn’t be easier: You invite a loved one, or anyone else you choose, to a StoryCorps recording site. There you’re met by a trained facilitator who explains the interview process, brings you into a quiet recording room and seats you across from your interview partner, each of you in front of a microphone. The facilitator hits “record,” and you share a 40-minute conversation. At the end of the session, you walk away with a copy of the interview, and a digital file goes to the Library of Congress, where it will be preserved for generations to come.