About Outer Voices

Outer Voices creates media to increase awareness of community wisdom and the power of change by amplifying first-person stories that are connected to place.

Outer Voices was hatched in 2003 with a plan to bring fresh ideas and voices to American ears, with a series of audio profiles on women leaders from remote parts of the world. With seed money from the Ford Foundation, we went off to witness social change and the personal changes of the people we recorded. The result was more than great radio content. These women were innovators, sharing unique solutions to community problems, with lessons that could be applied thoughtfully elsewhere. We quickly learned that every story we told was only scratching the surface, and we continued to write and record.

Fast forwarding twenty years, several shifts took place. The first-person narratives that drew our attention, still about changing communities and power, became more varied and sometimes more local. In those same years, the world of audio evolved into in-depth series, then podcasts, and became integral to interactive storytelling technologies. And we changed, as well, each following variations of our original paths. What of Outer Voices, then? After much thought and input, the answer became clear.

What Outer Voices offers audiences is still unique, and more important than ever. The act of listening, of paying attention to anything –more to the point, anyone — beyond the bounds of our immediate worlds is at once more difficult and more precious than ever. To catch a story on radio, or even better, to listen to a podcast with intention, and be immersed in the world we think we know so well from a different, first-person perspective, is a gift to ourselves. The possibilities and opportunities under different circumstances are recognized as possibilities and opportunities for ourselves and for our own communities. We begin to see a broader landscape, and ourselves as part of a larger pattern, a wider world.

There is an infinite pool of voices in this world, people who are changing things, in large ways and in quiet ways. Maybe they have always been doing the work, and maybe they are new to it. And so for our next move, we’re putting on a wider lens, looking at a bigger picture, listening with a different ear. We’re growing to be able to embrace that larger landscape and the people within it, with a new mission:

“Outer Voices creates media to increase awareness of community wisdom and the power of change by amplifying first-person stories that are deeply connected to place.”

Thanks for joining us.

Stephanie Guyer-Stevens

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