Date of Project

4-27-2026

Document Type

Honors Thesis

School Name

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Communication

Major Advisor

Dr. Lara Needham

Second Advisor

Dr. Michele Abee Biskis

Abstract

Americana World Community Center has served as a beacon of hope and justice within the Louisville, Kentucky community for over 30 years. The nonprofit organization provides “holistic services to Louisville's refugee, immigrant and underserved population to build strong and healthy families, create a safe and supportive community and help every individual realize their potential” (Americana, 2024). Americana creates opportunities for families to thrive through “education, family support, youth achievement, and career & financial development” (Americana, 2024). To further Americana’s mission and assist immigrant families, the organization is currently undergoing the process of gathering narratives of Americana’s impact on their staff, past clientele, and volunteers, a project that I helped facilitate. This project consists of showcasing Americana’s impact through storytelling and gathering qualitative data. These success story videos and interviews will assist with grant proposals, broadening audiences, enticing supporters and current stakeholders, and enhancing marketing campaigns.

This project was completed with the intent to provide useful deliverables in support of Americana World Community Center and assist with their initiative to collect interview narratives. Therefore, by utilizing the content on social media platforms, Americana also provided an opportunity to study the effectiveness of these deliverables, and thus, storytelling within nonprofit digital media campaigns. Storytelling has been researched extensively and described as an impactful tool for both the for-profit and nonprofit industry. However, this project adds to existing knowledge as it provides a synthesis of the necessary elements of nonprofit storytelling from existing research and actively applies the found information into real deliverables. By concluding with a performance evaluation, the project ultimately becomes a case study of an applied storytelling campaign and provides further insight on best practices for nonprofit marketing.

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