preserving the voices that shaped your mission
Every community organization has a story that lives in the memories of the people who built it — founders, long-time staff, volunteers, clergy, teachers, and community members. Too often, those stories are lost as people retire, move on, or pass away, leaving only dates, reports, and institutional records — but not the human experience that gives them meaning.
At Triangle Story Studio, we believe that history is not just what happened, but the meaning we make from it. Oral history captures not only milestones, but motivation: why the work began, how values were lived out, how challenges were navigated, and how a community understood and embodied its purpose over time.
Preserving these stories strengthens organizational identity and deepens community trust. It also creates powerful resources for fundraising, grant work, and the generations who will carry your mission forward. Whether your organization is celebrating an anniversary, navigating a transition, or simply wanting to safeguard its memory, Triangle Story Studio offers a thoughtful, professional approach to documenting and safeguarding your organization’s story.
Oral History Projects
Triangle Story Studio designs and carries out oral history projects tailored to the needs of community organizations. Whether you're documenting your founding, capturing the experiences of long-time members, or gathering community voices connected to your mission, each project is built collaboratively — shaped around your goals, timeline, and audience while adhering to professional oral history and ethical standards.
This is a good fit for organizations celebrating an anniversary, navigating a leadership transition, or simply wanting to safeguard the human experience behind their institutional record before it's lost. Projects can range from a small number of in-depth interviews to larger collections capturing multiple perspectives around a shared history or theme.
Oral History Projects — starting at $2,500
Small projects typically begin at $2,500 for three to five interviews with full documentation. Larger projects are scoped collaboratively based on goals, timeline, and capacity. Nonprofit rates are available — contact us to talk through what's right for your organization.
Public-facing storytelling & interpretation
Oral histories are powerful — but their impact grows when stories are thoughtfully shaped for listening, sharing, and reflection. Triangle Story Studio helps organizations transform interviews into accessible narratives that honor the voices at the center while making meaning clear for wider audiences. This work is especially valuable when organizations want to communicate not just what they do, but why it matters — in the words of the people who lived it.
This is a good fit for organizations marking an anniversary or milestone, navigating a moment of transition, or wanting to deepen community engagement through story rather than statistics. Work in this area can include narrative profiles and thematic summaries drawn from interviews, podcast episodes or short audio series, founder or mission-focused storytelling pieces, and audio or story excerpts for websites, exhibits, or public events. Pieces can stand alone or complement a larger oral history project.
Public-Facing Storytelling & Interpretation — starting at $1,000 per piece
Larger projects involving multiple pieces or an ongoing series are scoped collaboratively. Nonprofit rates are available — contact us to talk through what your organization needs.
archive-ready documentation
Preserving oral histories for the long term requires more than recording an interview. Triangle Story Studio prepares oral history materials according to professional standards, ensuring that stories remain accessible, intelligible, and usable well into the future — whether held internally or shared with a public repository. This work can stand alone or complement a larger oral history project.
This is a good fit for organizations with existing recordings that need professional preparation, institutions planning to donate oral histories to a library or archive, or any organization that wants to ensure the interviews they collect remain meaningful and usable for future researchers, educators, and community members — not just stored and forgotten. Work includes audio file organization and preparation, metadata and descriptive summaries, consent and rights documentation, tape logs, and delivery packages formatted for long-term preservation.
Archive-Ready Documentation — $85/hour Projects are scoped based on the volume and condition of existing materials. Contact us for an estimate. Nonprofit rates are available.
project design and consulting
Not every organization needs a full-service oral history project — but most benefit from thoughtful guidance before recording begins. Triangle Story Studio works alongside organizations to clarify goals, scope work realistically, and build projects that are ethically sound, historically grounded, and aligned with real-world capacity. This service can stand alone or serve as the foundation for future interview or documentation work.
This is a good fit for organizations planning an oral history project for the first time, groups with internal capacity but limited oral history experience, projects using volunteer or staff interviewers, or grant-funded initiatives that need a clear, defensible project plan before work begins. Our approach is collaborative and practical — we meet organizations where they are, balancing best practices with real constraints so projects are not only well designed, but actually doable.
Project Design & Consulting — starting at $500 Scope and pricing depend on the complexity of the project and the level of support needed. Some organizations need a single planning session; others benefit from ongoing advisory support throughout the life of a project. Nonprofit rates are available — contact us to talk through what would be most useful.
Why work with Triangle Story Studio?
Oral history is both a craft and a responsibility. Capturing someone's lived experience — and shaping it into something that will last — requires professional training, ethical judgment, and a genuine respect for the people at the center of the work.
Kathryn Wall brings more than twenty-five years of community-level oral history practice to every project, along with deep expertise in archival standards, narrative interpretation, and the ethical complexities that arise when real voices and real stories are involved. She has spent her career working with communities, not just for them — building the kind of trust that makes people willing to share the stories that actually matter.
At Triangle Story Studio, we take the time to understand your organization's mission and context before we begin. We work collaboratively, communicate clearly, and stay grounded in professional standards throughout. The result is work that honors individual voices while strengthening your collective story — built to last, and designed to be genuinely useful well into the future.
We also understand that community organizations operate under real constraints. We are committed to working with you to find an approach that is right-sized, realistic, and worth every dollar you invest in it.