MemoryFox Unveils The Seven 2024 Foxie Award Winners
2024 was a milestone year for MemoryFox. Originally built in 2017 as a tool to capture the lived experiences of elderly family members, Founder & CEO Chris Miano quickly realized that the simplicity of the tool could make a massive impact by allowing community stories to be shared in an ethical way. Since then, MemoryFox’s mission has been to elevate the stories of real human beings, ethically and authentically.
As of this year, MemoryFox has
- Assisted 500+ mission-driven organizations bring their missions to life.
- Collected and stored over 130,000 photos, videos and written testimonials.
- Voiced the importance of authentic, ethical storytelling by attending 13 conferences, hosting 13 webinars, facilitating 4 Narratives With Integrity panels and presenting on 28+ panels, podcasts and speaking engagements.
To celebrate this incredible year of growth, MemoryFox is proud to announce the seven winners of the 2nd annual Foxie Awards. As we unveil the winners, we invite you to join us in celebrating the storytelling spirit of all the wonderful mission-driven organizations we have the privilege to work with.
The Foxie Awards recognize outstanding storytelling achievements in seven distinct categories:
- Storyteller of the Year
- Photo of the Year
- Video of the Year
- Story Page of the Year
- Campaign of the Year
- Creative Storyteller of the Year
- Ethical Storyteller of the Year
These awards not only honor the recipients and pay tribute to the honorable mentions, but also serve as a testament to the diverse and inspiring stories that are integral in shaping the nonprofit sector as a whole.
This year, we have proudly added two new awards: Creative Storyteller of the Year and Ethical Storyteller of the Year. The addition of these new awards serve as a testament to the ever-changing landscape of nonprofit storytelling – a perspective of which we feel uniquely honored to have a firsthand look.
Meet the 2024 Foxie Award Winners
Storyteller of the Year Winner: Blessman International
The most prestigious honor, and subsequently the most challenging to designate, this award recognizes the organization whose body of work is exemplary through every step of MemoryFox’s “Collect, Organize & Share” process. This organization’s commitment to storytelling is unmatched – as seen through their consistency and dedication to collecting community stories that are unique, widespread and impactful all year long.
Blessman International exists to bring South African children and their families the gospel of Jesus Christ through faith formation and locally sustainable programs. Blessman International has captured their mission beautifully in 2024, by crafting a total of 21 story collection campaigns – some for unique events and some used year after year. To date, they have collected over 6,000 stories, including this one truly brings their mission to life, visually:
Support Blessman International
Storyteller of the Year Honorable Mention: UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs
Photo of the Year Winner: School Year Abroad
A testament to the power of a single image, this award acknowledges the organization whose work has left an indelible mark by telling a compelling story in a single frame. The MemoryFox team chose the following photo as the 2024 Photo of the Year:
School Year Abroad (SYA) promotes intercultural understanding and appreciation through the immersive adventure of fully engaging with different languages and peoples. By providing the opportunity for high school students to study abroad in either Spain, France, or Italy, SYA programming helps their students develop skills and cultural competencies for an increasingly interdependent world.
SYA’s MemoryFox Story Bank is overflowing with compelling images from individuals who have participated in their programs. And while it was challenging to choose just one image, we feel this photo truly shows the essence of this incredible mission.
Photo of the Year Honorable Mentions: Memphis Teacher Residency; Children’s Hospital of Buffalo
Video of the Year Winner: Center for Caregiver Advancement
It’s never been more important to share nonprofit impact stories via video. Highlighting the dynamic world of video storytelling, this award honors the organization who created an exceptional video that has masterfully combined an original concept with a stunning, emotion-provoking message.
This year’s Video of the Year Winner is Center for Caregiver Advancement, for their ”Protect Career Pathways Program” composite video. This inspiring video serves as an advocacy piece to urge legislators to protect this essential program. They successfully sourced and combined videos from multiple individuals to craft this excellent, compelling form of advocacy. Check it out:
Advocacy is just one of the many pillars of The Center for Caregiver Advancement’s mission to improve care and build better lives for caregivers and the people they serve throughout California.
Support Center for Caregiver Advancement
Video of the Year Honorable Mentions: I Would Rather Be Reading; Engage Arkansas
Story Page of the Year Winner: “Meet Our Residents”, by Linc Housing
Recognizing the importance of combining storytelling through multiple individuals and expertly displaying them, this award celebrates the MemoryFox Story Page that has seamlessly woven a collection of stories into a cohesive and visually stunning narrative.
Linc Housing’s mission is to build communities and strengthen neighborhoods for people underserved by the marketplace. The winning “Meet Our Residents” Story Page highlights their residents and various community events, showcasing how their services are deepening community connections. The exceptional thing about this particular Story Page is the consistent addition of new content – so viewers always have something new to learn and be inspired by!
Story Page of the Year Honorable Mentions: The Cape Cod Foundation, Urban Health Partnerships
Campaign of the Year Winner: Wreaths Across America
Embracing the power of community storytelling, this award commends the organization who crafted an exceptional content collection campaign that inspired an enormous amount of engagement amongst their supporters, staff and volunteers.
Each December, as part of their year round mission to Remember, Honor and Teach, Wreaths Across America coordinates wreath-laying ceremonies at Arlington National Cemetery, as well as at more than 4,600 additional locations. This meaningful annual event cannot be executed without the dedication of millions of volunteers. Following the success of their 2022 campaign – which won “Campaign of the Year” last year, respectfully – the MemoryFox team wondered if Wreaths Across America could possibly outdo themselves.
However, the “Wreaths Across America Day 2023” campaign proved wildly successful, populating with 8,400 photos and videos from more than 1,000 individuals across the nation. This amount of community-generated content is truly extraordinary. To date, this is the most content ever submitted to a MemoryFox campaign.
Support Wreaths Across America
Campaign of the Year Honorable Mentions: Brown Bagging for Calgary’s Kids; Common Hope
Creative Storyteller of the Year: YMCA of Northern Alberta
The award for Creative Storyteller of the Year celebrates a storytelling organization that uses innovative, thoughtful ways to capture and share stories from their community all year long. A creative storyteller not only uses out-of-the-box thinking when creating MemoryFox campaigns, but also is committed to improving their storytelling techniques over time. These creative tactics include using unique prompts and highlighting perspectives of different community members within their nonprofit.
MemoryFox is proud to designate the YMCA of Northern Alberta as the inaugural winner of the Creative Storyteller of the Year Foxie award. The YMCA of Northern Alberta is committed to their mission to create life-enhancing opportunities for the growth and development of all people in spirit, mind and body, across Alberta as well as the Wood Buffalo, Grande Prairie and Red Deer regions of Canada.
The YMCA of Northern Alberta has done an exceptional job of crafting campaigns to collect stories from a multitude of community perspectives, including: Summer Day Camp attendees, grant recipients, market vendors, charity bike riders, staff members and volunteers. Check out their “Why do we volunteer at the Y?” social media feature:
Support the YMCA of Northern Alberta
Creative Storyteller of the Year Honorable Mentions: United Way Suncoast; Child Development Centers
Ethical Storyteller of the Year Winner: I Would Rather Be Reading
Ethical storytelling is more than simply collecting consent; it is both a process and set of values. Ethical storytelling means practicing intentionality, by respecting the dignity of storytellers and authentically listening to your community. It is also a process of continuous improvement.
Many of our MemoryFox storytellers have made a commitment to learning – by attending ethical storytelling panels or explicitly working with our customer success team to make improvements – but the Ethical Storyteller of the Year award is given to an organization that has truly gone above and beyond to teach other organizations as well.
MemoryFox is proud to announce that our inaugural Ethical Storyteller of the Year award has been awarded to I Would Rather Be Reading (IWRBR). IWRBR provides equitable access to trauma responsive literacy support and social-emotional learning to children across greater Louisville, Kentucky. Their content consistently demonstrates a commitment to authentically connecting with their community and they relish the opportunity to continue learning and sharing their experiences with others.
You can watch IWRBR’s CEO/Co-Founder on our December 2024 Narratives With Integrity Panel, where she discusses ethical considerations for sharing the stories of youth.
Support I Would Rather Be Reading
Ethical Storyteller of the Year Honorable Mentions: Cal’s Angels; Gulf Coast JFCS
MemoryFox is proud to be the premiere technology solution for impact-driven organizations to bring their missions to life. A dazzling culmination of impact, creativity and visual storytelling, across the full spectrum of missions and sizes, the seven 2024 Foxie winners represent storytelling excellence in the nonprofit sector.
To learn more about MemoryFox, we invite you to invest 30 minutes of your time with our team to:
- Talk through your storytelling process and identify ways to apply an ethical framework.
- Show you a brief presentation of our platform and the resources we provide.
- Determine if adding MemoryFox to your toolkit would be beneficial to your organization.
