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"Your brand is what people say about you when you are not around"

Want to record your own StoryCorps-style interviews? Read these expert tips for collecting high-impact oral narratives.

So many young people want to escape their hometowns. Learn how one organization used oral histories and "listening posts" to build community spirit.

Video is all the rage for storytelling these days. But too many people overlook the power of oral narratives. Learn why you shouldn't ignore audio.

It's every nonprofit's Holy Grail: to communicate the "essence" of what makes your organization stand out in a way that will get your audience to stop what they are doing and pay attention. In other words, it's a pretty tall order.

Hines and his wife bought a house in Pittsburgh in 2000. It was their first, and he admits now that they did it 'blindly' - without the expert counseling provided by organizations like NeighborWorks of Western Pennsylvania, which stepped in later to help, in much less happy circumstances.

Below are the stories of two women who sought help from a professional participating in NeighborWorks’ National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling (NFMC) program – with two different outcomes, but the same fighting spirit. The five stories told in this series offer a flavor of both the trauma that foreclosure inflicts on families, and the ability of the human spirit – aided by the practical support of a trusted advisor – to bounce back.

When she and her husband first set eyes on their soon-to-be home on Oct. 25, 1995, “the house looked like a nightmare from hell,” says Dorothy James. With the house in Roxbury, MA, damaged by fire, the original owner no longer wanted to invest money or time in the structure.  However, with her flair for interior decorating, she saw a labor of love, and Dorothy and Walter James made it their own.

We all know the story in numbers. A total of 4.9 million homes were foreclosed in the wake of the Great Recession and even today, close to 1.9 million mortgages are in serious delinquency. In February alone, 43,000 families lost their homes – albeit down 15 percent from the same month the year before. Then there are the more than a million other families who barely saved their homes, but typically after months of emotional turmoil. What the media don’t report, however, is how these families are coping a year or more later. Are they in better financial shape today? What lasting effects did their crisis have? What lessons learned would they share with others?

When Ruben and Jesusita got married eight years ago, their love was enough to turn their lives around in so many ways. But when it came to their finances, they were a mutual disaster.