Connecting With You

The California Council for the Humanities (CCH) states on its website:

"the telling and sharing of stories strengthens communities by:

• breaking down barriers between people
• making people feel more connected to each other and the place where they live
• giving people a greater understanding of the story of their neighborhood, town and state and their role in that story
• creating a more inclusive community narrative."

In 2001, I worked on a market research study for CCH. The purpose was to help CCH determine how it could best advance its mission of fostering understanding between people and encouraging engagement in community life through the public use of the humanities.

The above quote reflects the findings of the study, which was undertaken to address concerns over the polarization of groups within the state's increasingly diverse population.

These concerns had arisen, in part, due to Robert Putnam's work and the findings of the Saguro Seminar group's 2000 Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey that indicated that "social capital" was in serious shortage throughout the country.

Based on our study findings, CCH determined that it could best advance its mission by engaging Californians in programs that involve the telling and sharing of stories. Specifically, CCH decided to implement a statewide multi-year initiative: the California Stories Initiative.

The initial phase of the initiative was focused on engaging Californians in telling and sharing stories of how they came to California. Since the story of immigrating to California, whether one's own story or that of one's ancestors, is something the vast majority of Californians share, this was an effective way of strengthening connections between community members.

CCH considered the project to be successful in achieving its objectives and went on to develop related projects in subsequent years.