Indigneous Story Medicine

California is home to 700,000 Indigenous people, the largest Native American population in the country, with 38,083 residing in Riverside and San Bernardino Counties. American Indians and Alaska Natives (AIANs) are significantly impacted by mental health challenges. According to the 2009 California Health Interview Survey, one of the most significant mental health concerns among AIANs is depression. AIAN adults were more likely to have experienced serious psychological distress during both the past year compared to whites (12.2% versus 5.6%), as well as during the past month (5.2% versus 2.2%). Nationally, suicide among AIANs is higher among AIANs than any other racial/ ethnic group. In 2022, the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) reported that between 2010 and 2020, suicide death rates increased substantially among people of color, with American Indian or Alaska Natives experiencing a 41% increase. In California, adult AIAN women are more likely than all women to report having ever seriously thought of committing suicide (14.0% versus 9.9%). The rates for AIAN adult men, are also above that of all men (11.3% versus 7.5%). Overall, AIANs reported needing help for emotional/mental health problems more often than whites (19.4% versus 16.0%) (CHIS, 2009). 

According to the California Reducing Disparities Project (CRDP), depression and suicide within AIAN communities stems from historical trauma, a cumulative emotional and psychological wounding across generations. behaviors rooted as normal responses to overwhelming traumatic events, which include forced removal of children from a community to be institutionalized at boarding schools and the removal of whole tribes from traditional homelands to other areas. Native American boarding schools were rampant with widespread abuse and the eradication of tribal languages and cultural practices. 

Culture affects the perception, the utilization, and even the outcomes of mental health services. To reduce disparities for ethnic communities, services need to be provided in a manner that is congruent rather than conflicting with Native cultural norms (USDHHS 2001). In spite of these staggering numbers, indigenous communities lack accessible, culturally informed wellness services.

The most successful Native American programs are those that have revived culture (CRDP). Storytelling for healing and transformation has ancient roots, dating back to indigenous cultures worldwide. Indigenous communities used storytelling to transmit cultural knowledge, values, healing and wellness practices. Stories, form of ancestral knowledge transfer and connect individuals to place, community, and world. They are the method by which indigenous people learn, remember, grow, and thrive. 

It is why native storyteller Leslie Marmon Silko says, “Let me tell you something about stories don’t be fooled they aren’t just entertainment. They are all we have you see to fight off illness and death.” 

Neuroscientists, Young and Saver note that once we lose our ability to construct narrative, we lose ourselves. This loss of self has been experienced in many Native communities through the process of historical trauma; as such, it is critical that storytelling and narrative be revitalized in communities in order to restore self-identity as well as communal/tribal identity and wellness. Restoration of narratives is critical for indigenous health and well-being

To foster healing and wellbeing within our indigenous community, we have developed a Story-Medicine model anchored in traditional knowledge systems. Our focus is on nurturing wellness values of interconnectedness, wisdom teachings of purpose and empowerment, and healing processes of balance that are embedded within our indigenous stories. Through revitalizing these narratives, our aim is to activate a remembering and connectedness to something greater; and a sense of hope and renewal for what is possible for ourselves, our communities and the world, thereby creating Bimidiziwin, the Chippewa concept for the good life, which leads to global harmony (peace), beauty, and a prosperous future for the next generations. 

Our Story Medicine Model highlights the profound relevance of ancestral narratives and cultural traditions to modern health and wellness outcomes today. By exploring how indigenous stories intersect with our sense of purpose, connection, and balance, we uncover pathways where  storytelling holds profound potential to enhance individual and collective wellbeing. 

Our Story Medicine Quest is built on native scholar, Dr. Greg Cajete’s learning model, which is taken from the Aztec theory of learning-asserting that the purpose of education is to become a complete human being. The Aztec philosopher Tlamatinimine, taught that the purpose of education is to discover one’s true face (develop and express innate character and potential), heart (search out and express inner passion), and foundation (find the work that expresses the fullest expression of self and truth). In our model we work with a process of coming into relationship with stories orienting around Dr. Greg Cajete’s stages of education which include asking, seeking, and making. 

Through our Indigenous Story Medicine technology, we aim to empower indigenous people by providing access to traditional wellness stories with a digital coaching process to drive wellness outcomes. We embrace a transformative journey through storytelling, inspired by Dr. Cajete's stages of education, Harvard’s Pre-Text methodology of interacting with text, and experiential processes of learning based on insight-oriented practices for healing, growth, and transformation including mindfulness (mind), somatic experiencing (body), and the Jungian practice of active imagination (spirit). It was Einstein who said imagination is more important than knowledge.

We aim to prototype a digital multimedia storytelling archive and online interactive coaching platform designed to facilitate a deep engagement and connection with story. For the archive, we will work directly with indigenous culture bearers and elders to approve and then digitally import stories formatted in both an oral tradition and written format. Our coaching process centers around helping people come into relationship with the stories for a deeper understanding of the application of messages to their health, wellbeing, and increase motivation for coming into alignment with a wellness path based on their intention (asking).

By centering indigenous values of peace, interconnectedness, balance, and beauty, we envision a world where indigenous wisdom enriches us all. 

Together, we're weaving a tapestry of resilience and renewal for indigenous communities, leveraging digital technology to amplify the spread and impact of indigenous wisdom through the fusion of storytelling and digital technology.

Indigenous Story Medicine, specifically a multimedia digital story archive and online interactive coaching process, creates an infrastructure enabling culture-based wellness solutions to address contemporary issues rooted in colonization.

About 12% of Americans Indians (AI) in the US live in California — making it home to the second-largest native population in the country We will engage the diverse urban and reservation-based communities of Riverside and San Bernardino Counties with whom we have decades of experience. This region spans 27,405 square feet and is home to 38,083 AIs (Census 2020). In this two-county area, there are 13 reservations, and a large urban population. 

Native Vision: A Focus on Improving Behavioral Health Wellness for California Native Americans and California Reducing Disparities Project Strategic Plan to Reduce Mental Health Disparities concluded that AI communities should be supported in efforts to revive or sustain cultural traditions/practices to address the loss of culture and improve wellness. Dr. Dionne’s work with Riverside University Health Systems (RUHS) supports this conclusion, as does Article 11 of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples stating that Indigenous peoples have the right to practice and revitalize their cultural traditions and customs. This includes the right to maintain, protect, and develop the past, present, and future manifestations of their cultures.

To be community informed, over the past thirty years, Dr. Dionne Madrigal has conducted numerous indigenous focus groups/listening session, designed and evaluated cultural strengthening interventions, worked for local tribal consortiums creating and leading indigenous workshops centered around story, and served as the AI cultural consultant for RUHS, forming an AI council of local elders and culture bearers to inform the path forward resulting in recommendations to develop projects that support cultural revitalization, including storytelling. She participates in indigenous healing theatre, centered in traditional stories, for and by community to inform contemporary issues such as Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (includes talk back sessions). The MMIW play, Menil and Her Heart was performed in sixteen venues, all via request from the community, including at the California State Capital in 2022. It is within these roles listening, apply, evaluating and revising, and informed by her own indigenous heritage, that the current solution emerged. 

Because of colonization, we don’t know our stories and if we find them, we don’t always know how to come into relationship with them or apply them to contemporary problems we face today. This is a monumental barrier to wellness, not only for our community, but for a world that needs indigenous solutions. Historical trauma and current colonization/oppression attack us at the core of our worldview, which informs our connection to ourselves and the world and then erases us from the story. This loss results in an imbalance carrying forward to subsequent generations where the experiences of our ancestors impact how our genes are expressed today. Our worldview is within our stories. Our solution, places indigenous people in empowered leading roles within indigenous frameworks aimed at recovering our historical and collective memory essential for wellbeing.

The Luke Madrigal Indigenous Storytelling (LMIS) team is uniquely positioned to design and deliver our solution to the target population due to our deep roots and extensive experience working within indigenous communities with traditional stories in experiential formats. Our team comprises an all-indigenous board and staff, representing a diverse range of community experience (judge, psychologists, drama therapist, public health and research scientists, playwrights, actors, musicians, and storytellers). Our collective expertise includes training in community engagement modalities such as playback theatre, theatre of the oppressed, and ethnodrama.

Our non-profit organization emerged from decades of extensive, proximal, community work in Riverside and San Bernardino Counties, rooted in preserving and empowering indigenous culture, narratives, and community. Our motto, "our voices, our telling," epitomizes our mission to strengthen and empower indigenous peoples through storytelling rooted in indigenous narratives and worldview. 

Our team lead, Dr. Renda Dionne Madrigal, is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. She grew up in the urban indigenous environment of Southern California and married into the local Cahuilla tribe, located within Riverside County. She has been deeply immersed in the local indigenous community for over three decades. 

Her expertise in story is deeply rooted in her indigenous heritage and decades-long immersion in the local indigenous community both professionally and personally. With a background in psychology, drama therapy, and creative writing she has been at the forefront of utilizing indigenous storytelling as a powerful tool for healing and empowerment. Her collaborative efforts with local tribal consortiums, indigenous community and health programs, native child welfare agencies, and with culture bearers, and elders ensures that her interventions are community-driven and culturally relevant. 

Her husband, the late Luke Madrigal, culture bearer for his people, was integral in reviving the Cahuilla birdsongs. Together, they set their aim at dedicating their lives to strengthening indigenous communities for a better world. They raised two daughters, currently at Harvard and involved in using traditional stories to inform solutions for contemporary problems today. LMIS recently hosted a series of Harvard Pre-text workshops connecting people to traditional stories in collaboration with close partner and elder consultant, Earnest Siva (Dorothy Ramon Learning Center). 

Dr. Dionne Madrigal was featured on the cover of Mindful Magazine (2018) highlighting her contributions to indigenous storytelling and its role in promoting wellness and healing within community. Her work has garnered recognition, as one of the top women of mindfulness (2022) and her book Mindful Families, stemming from work in the local community, was a best book of 2021. She has been involved in story medicine projects worldwide to strengthen indigenous well-being, including, Voices Unidos, an indigenous-led organization focused on changing the narrative on border issues for migrant communities in Texas, Braided Wisdom, a mindfulness organization focused on developing and supporting Indigenous Leadership worldwide, and the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control, First Nations Unit, centered on reducing health disparities in First Nations communities.

Her expertise in Story Medicine stems from her profound understanding of indigenous narratives and their healing power.

https://www.mindful.org/mindful-healing-storytelling/

 https://www.mindful.org/10-powerful-women-of-the-mindfulness-movement-2022/

We are at the Prototype stage of our Indigenous Story Medicine journey.  We currently implement our story medicine model within a live, online group format with 20-25 people attending each session over 8-12 months. This limits our scale and provides a barrier as people have difficulty accessing traditional stories, a critical element in story medicine, due to issues related to historical efforts to erase our culture and ways and not understanding traditional protocols and the nature of story transmission through oral tradition. We propose to create a digital archive for indigenous people to access traditional wellness stories in multiple formats: oral, written, and visual.  The digital story formats can serve two purposes: a) be utilized in an individualized coaching process to engage deeply with the stories in an indigenous structure; and b) serve as a foundation for further development of a more scalable online platform for storytelling medicine. 

By creating a digital infrastructure to launch an indigenous community-based platform with traditional wellness stories and resources for deep engagement of the stories we can empower indigenous people to connect with indigenous stories in a way that’s meaningful and relevant to the unique problems they face today, leaving them more empowered and strengthened. Our digital infrastructure will provide a centralized hub for accessing and working with traditional stories, furthering our reach and impact through facilitating access to, and engagement with, indigenous stories for health and wellbeing. 

Though we have an initial working version of the solution, we have not yet developed any multimedia, digital, or online platforms for this purpose. Currently our efforts have revolved around planning and conceptualizing as we deliver the live workshop formats.  

We envision two components to the story medicine platform. 

Multimedia Indigenous Story Archive: This archive will encompass approved traditional stories, including oral tellings, textual narratives, and visual art. We aim to seed a prototype for online story transmission, focusing on core wellness narratives rooted in indigenous values of peace, beauty, balance, and healing.

Online Interactive Coaching: We also plan to translate our experiential workshop processes into an online format, offering individualized coaching to participants. This coaching will help individuals engage more deeply with the stories, apply them to specific issues in their lives, and activate wellness components derived from the stories.

Ultimately, we hope to create a multimedia archive and online coaching process within an indigenous community-based platform. This marks a critical next step for us. It will empower individuals to connect with traditional stories from their heritage in a meaningful way, extending our reach and impact beyond physical workshops. This digital platform holds immense potential to promote cultural preservation, personal growth, and community interconnectedness.

We are hoping to get technical support, coaching and connection to build digital infrastructure to archive traditional wellness stories for indigenous people to access in multiple formats: oral, written, and visual.  The digital story formats can serve two purposes: a) be utilized in an individualized coaching process to engage deeply with the stories in an indigenous structure; and b) serve as a foundation for further development of a more scalable online platform for storytelling medicine. We also see Solve as opening doors we would not otherwise be able to access in developing Story Medicine to scale.

We currently offer Story Medicine workshops, which include a component of accessing and engaging traditional stories. We would like to improve quality, increase access, and further provide an ethical and responsible process and platform for working with indigenous stories that more indigenous people can receive. Our digital infrastructure will provide a centralized hub for accessing and working with traditional stories, furthering our potential reach and impact through facilitating access to, and engagement with, indigenous stories for health and wellbeing in a culturally appropriate manner. Solve will provide a launching point for developing ethical technology and quality improvement for our Story Medicine process, designed for, by, and with indigenous people. Through coaching, workshops, and mentorship from domain experts we will be able to improve and refine our healing modality and intervention, including product-market fit, strategy and development. Solve will also help us gain visibility and exposure, networking with research community for further program development and evaluation, pitching our product, and also writing for foundation and federal funding to support further our Story Medicine technology development across multiple platforms. This will allow continued archiving of larger sets of indigenous stories and traditions to enhance the quality of our storytelling intervention focus for wellbeing of indigenous people. 

Our team lead, Dr. Renda Dionne Madrigal, is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. She grew up in the urban indigenous environment of Southern California and married a culture bearer from the local Cahuilla tribe, located within Riverside County. She has two daughters, enrolled at Cahuilla and of Chippewa descent. She has been deeply immersed in the local indigenous community for over three decades, both professionally and personally.  Her work and family life center around strengthening indigenous communities, honoring ancestral voices, and  preserving culture through storytelling.  

Dr. Dionne Madrigal has been involved in story medicine projects worldwide to strengthen indigenous well-being, including, Voices Unidos, an indigenous-led organization focused on changing the narrative on border issues for migrant communities in Texas, Braided Wisdom, a mindfulness organization focused on developing and supporting Indigenous Leadership worldwide, and the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control, First Nations Team Chee Mamuk, an Indigenous program that provides innovative and culturally appropriate training, educational resources and wise practice models centered on reducing health disparities in First Nations communities.  Drs. Davis and Dionne have a history of successful NIH funding to work within Indigenous communities in the US and Canada to strengthen culture, families, and communities against historical trauma leading to drug use and HIV-risk (R01 DA017626: HIV prevention; R01DA015817: Drug use prevention; R41DA022781: cultural strengthening within Western colonization). These efforts led to publications around the need for cultural adaptation of Western intervention set within the Western narrative (Davis, Dionne, & Fortin, 2014; Dionne, Davis, Sheeber & Madrigal, 2009; Greenfield, Skewes, Dionne, Davis, Cwik, Venner & Belcourt-Ditloff, 2013).  Dr. Davis, partnered with colleagues at the Oregon Research institute to develop internet-based parenting interventions within economically distressed communities.  It was within this realm that a partnership formed with Influents Innovations and the T-BIDS platform (e.g., Baggett, Davis, Olwit, & Feil, 2023; Davis, Baggett, Patterson, Feil, Landry & Leve, 2022; Baggett, Davis, Mosley, Miller, Leve & Feil, 2021; Baggett, Davis, Sheeber, Miller, Miller, Leve, Mosely, Landry & Feil, 2021; Baggett, Davis, Sheeber, Ammerman, Moseley, Spinks, & Feil, 2020 ). This research history provides a solid foundation for the proposed project to build a prototype ancestral story archive, and the possibilities of future funding to complete and disseminate our story medicine interactive healing platform.   

The history of this country sought to erase Indigenous stories, languages, traditions, and culture.  In mainstream society, white privilege drives the power to define the national narrative and Indigenous peoples to this land have no place in that narrative.  As such, attempting to design a multimedia, interactive Indigenous story archive, accessible to all peoples, is innovative in that ancestral stories are universal and timeless in nature to not only counter the societal erasure of these stories but also provide guiding stories to achieve strength and balance in today’s world.  Creating this archive alongside cultural experts and elders ensures ethical and responsible ancestral technology and improves accessibility to cultural medicine that was historically taken, allowing cultural re-vitalization and re-indigenization for indigenous well-being. We begin by assessing indigenous wellness stories that can be shared in this format, while also providing a model for indigenous people to use with their own stories that may not be appropriate for public domain sites. The result is an innovative digital story archive that strengthens indigenous people, giving them access to cultural resources, essential for health and wellbeing and has capacity to scale at a global level. 

Because existing theories of change in Western research are predicated on the narrative built in the Western culture, it is difficult to overlay a Western model of change onto the importance of indigenous story medicine.  We have attempted to align our approach to story medicine within the Waves model for deeper narrative change (https://narrativeinitiative.org/blog/waves-a-model-for-deep-narrative-change/?ref=samrye.xyz).  Within this model, stories that build a narrative represent the worldview of the culture who created the narrative.  By building an indigenous story medicine archive, available to all peoples, not only do we strengthen the healing narrative for indigenous peoples, we can begin to challenge and discuss the indigenous worldview and narrative within the mainstream society narrative.  In essence, the wave of narrative to uplift indigenous people to improve their wellbeing, that can also reshape the existing national narrative for all people within which the indigenous healing of story can be integrated for the wellbeing of all. 

The Solve program will be the seed from which indigenous people can access and engage with traditional knowledge systems embedded in stories and apply them to their lives. We will do this by first building a multimedia Indigenous Story Medicine archive in conjunction with elders and culture bearers to refine our cultural protocol for appropriate selection of indigenous stories. We will select four stories for prototype archive, ensuring their appropriateness for wider spread dissemination.  We will then work to develop text, audio and visual components of these stories.  We will also begin to conceptualize digital coaching models for these stories to lay the foundation for subsequent funding to continue to build the story medicine platform. Service outputs will include an archive four multimedia presentations of four stories and an initial draft of a coaching model amenable to integration into, and interaction with, the story medicine archive platform. 

Ultimately, from the Solve seed, indigenous people will have a protocol for responsibly and ethnically interacting with indigenous stories, be able to engage with, learn from, and apply the wisdom from healing stories to their own life within an interactive digital coaching program.  Such a program will allow indigenous people to see themselves in the narrative and as wisdom holders for solutions in the world today.  As well, restoring their narrative as a connected, healthy, empowered people to lead themselves, others and the word in peace and wellbeing.  Engaging with indigenous stories in a personal way will impact knowledge, insight, and motivation, giving a sense of meaning, connection and aim, increasing agency to be active change makers in the world. 

Our primary impact goal is to build the foundation for a multimodal archive of indigenous healing stories for the story medicine platform to include stories with a strong indigenous worldview that will ensure lessons of health and wellbeing (prototype story), empowers women (prototype story for gender equality), promotes interdependence (prototype story to reduce inequalities) and moves towards a more peaceful and sustainable world (prototype story).  We aim to share the prototype stories with indigenous communities, and encourage a larger base of indigenous stories for the people.  Initiating this type of healing journey will serve as the spark to start the fire of restored accessibility to the people of indigenous knowledge systems. Progress will be measured by building an archival platform within which to store four prototype stories representing the four domains identified above.  

As well, through our discussions with elders and leader within indigenous communities, we will conceptual a coaching process model within a digital platform that will interact with the archival stories.  Our impact goal here is to set the foundation for a protocol of responsibly and ethically interacting with indigenous stories as well as being able to engage with, learn from, and apply wisdom from indigenous healing stories to their own life. Indigenous people will be reconnected with indigenous healing stories, seeing themselves in the narrative and as wisdom holders for solutions in the world today.  Progress will be measured by producing an initial draft coaching protocol, outlining how each archived story will integrate into the interactive coaching protocol.

We will also conduct community interviews as we move through building and populating both the archival platform and drafting the integrated coaching protocol.  We will use as our guide, an ecological fit framework (Danaher, Milgrom, Seeley, Stuart, Schembri, Tyler, et al., 2012) which assesses: 1) current environment (e.g., acceptability of using traditional stories within the proposed story medicine framework); 2) current need  (e.g., interest in, and perceived benefit of, story medicine platform); 3) program fit (e.g., interactive story medicine platform and purpose fit with community); 4) general concerns about story medicine interactive platform (i.e., traditional story archive, integration into draft coach protocol) 5) general concerns or barriers (e.g., barriers that would impede utilizing the story medicine platform); 5) Adaptations (e.g., suggestions for adaptations to story medicine platform). Knowledge derived from this assessment will provide information necessary to facilitate resonance and future uptake.

Ecological Fit Reference:  Danaher, B. G., Milgrom, J., Seeley, J. R., Stuart, S., Schembri, C., Tyler, M. S., . . . Lewinsohn, P. (2012). Web-based intervention for postpartum depression: Formative research and design of the MomMoodBooster program. Journal of Medical Internet Research Protocols, 1(2), e18.

We are leveraging the healing power of indigenous ancestral stories, elder knowledge input, and the power of existing technologies to expand the reach of our story medicine healing journey previously done in live settings.  We will also leverage our prior experience working with Influents Innovations to build internet-based interventions using the T-BIDS platform (https://influentsin.com/product-t-bids-2mdidc3k-pwrjfjdvp/).  This is a technology we know and can serve as an archive for ancestral stories, with multi-media presentations of these stories and has an administrative portal useful for integrating in our coaching process.  By utilizing an established technological platform, this allows attention to be focused more strongly on the important content being used to populate the technology, with the known T-BIDS structure serving as the framework for our interactive story medicine process.  T-BIDS has a built-in, remote monitoring system which will allow us to track viewing of our ancestral story archive as well as, ultimately monitor usage of our interactive storytelling process.

We are leveraging the healing power of indigenous ancestral stories, elder knowledge input, and the power of existing technologies to expand the reach of our story medicine healing journey previously done in live settings.  We will also leverage our prior experience working with Influents Innovations to build internet-based interventions using the T-BIDS platform (https://influentsin.com/product-t-bids-2mdidc3k-pwrjfjdvp/).  This is a technology we know and can serve as an archive for ancestral stories, with multi-media presentations of these stories and has an administrative portal useful for integrating in our coaching process.  By utilizing an established technological platform, this allows attention to be focused more strongly on the important content being used to populate the technology, with the known T-BIDS structure serving as the framework for our interactive story medicine process.  T-BIDS has a built-in, remote monitoring system which will allow us to track viewing of our ancestral story archive as well as, ultimately monitor usage of our interactive storytelling process.

California

California

Part Time Staff: 5

Other workers: 10

Renda Dionne Madrigal began working on the current Story Medicine modality in 2020. She has been working to promote wellness in indigenous communities through story for thirty years. 

The Luke Madrigal Indigenous Storytelling (LMIS) team is uniquely positioned to design and deliver our solution to the target population due to our deep roots and extensive experience working within indigenous communities with traditional stories in experiential formats. Our team comprises an all-inclusive indigenous board (5), part time staff (4), and volunteer ensemble (10) representing a diverse range of community experience (judge, psychologists, drama therapist, public health and research scientists, playwrights, actors, musicians, and storytellers) and a volunteer ensemble (10). Our collective expertise includes training in community engagement modalities such as playback theatre, theatre of the oppressed, and ethnodrama and staff with research expertise in establishing successful community-research relationships and building respectful cross-cultural bridges between non-majority cultures and mainstream evidence-based programs. 

In addition, we have close indigenous community partners from the local community where we currently offer forms of Story Medicine workshops and performances in the local community including the Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, the Morongo Empowerment Program, the California Indian Nations College, Noli Tribal School on the Soboba Reservation, Cal State San Bernardino Indigenous Peoples Program, and Sherman Indian School. 

The Luke Madrigal Indigenous Storytelling Nonprofit empowers, preserves, and strengthens indigenous peoples through storytelling rooted in indigenous narratives and worldviews. Our work centers around Story as Medicine. We support diverse storytelling modalities, including plays, film, literature, and artistic expressions, to amplify indigenous voices and cultures in service to honor our ancestors, strengthen ourselves, and ensure beauty and balance for the future generations. We achieve this through various initiatives:

Storytelling (workshops, live and virtual community events, performances), Community Engagement (collaborating with Indigenous elders, storytellers, and youth, ensuring the continuity of storytelling traditions through intergenerational dialogue and collaboration), Digital Archiving (Indigenous stories), Funding Model targets (grants, donations, sponsorships, and earned income), Evaluation and Impact Assessment (evaluate impact of our programs).

Formed in 2020 by Sophia Madrigal (Cahuilla/Chippewa) to honor the legacy of her father. Sophia initiated the "Healing Through the Indigenous Art of Storytelling" virtual workshops during the pandemic, offering a space for individuals to connect, heal, and reclaim their narratives. In addition, her sister, Isabella Madrigal (Cahuilla/Chippewa)  wrote the acclaimed play Menil and Her Heart joining her as a co-director of the organization in 2020. Their mother, Turtle Mountain Chippewa Psychologist, Drama Therapist, and Author, Renda Dionne Madrigal, serves on the board and as the Healing through Storytelling Director has led efforts in curriculum development and audience talkback, playback, and ethnodrama formats. She is the founder of Story Medicine. Dr. Betsy Davis (Cherokee) research scientist and Influence Innovations team expert is in charge of designing and evaluating project impact. 

Menil and Her Heart first began as a grass roots effort to highlight Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit People. The project originated with storytelling workshops with the indigenous community in the Riverside and San Bernardino area. The story/theater group consists of approximately eighteen community members. The play was a winner of the 2020 Yale Young Native Storytellers Contest. Menil and Her Heart has been performed at 16 venues across the nation and was featured at the United Nations’ Girls Speak out Event in 2019 and at the California State Capitol in 2022 for legislators voting on issues surrounding missing and murdered Indigenous people. The play continues to be performed bi-anually in venues across California. In 2024 Isabella received a grant from the Center for Cultural Power to go towards the larger dream of creating a feature film of Menil and Her Heart.

Sophia is a recipient of the Yale University Misty Upham Award for Young Native Actors 2023 and is the Orange County Artist of the Year Theater finalist 2022. Her film Wildflower: Indigenous Spirit earned Sophia her Inaugural GSUSA Gold Award. For her work, Sophia spoke at the United Nations’ Day of the Girl Summit: Girls Speak Out Event in 2020. Wildflower also earned Sophia her Rupert Costo Medal in American Indian Affairs from the 2022 UCR Writers Week. She is the 2024 recipient of the Free to Be You and Me Award at the Women of Vision Award by Ms Foundation for Women.

We plan to get revenue from government and foundation grants, and donors, including local tribes, donations, sponsorships, and earned income from social enterprise. We are in the early stages of receiving funding for our nonprofit. Currently we have received funding and support from tribal and university donors requesting our story performances. (2023 Mt. San Antonio College $7,000; 2024 Noli tribal school on the Soboba Reservation $2,000) and grant funding ($15,000 from the Center of Cultural Power) to create a short film.  Prior to the nonprofit we received individual honorariums and resources such as theatre space, sound and lighting technicians, food for cast, and props for 14 performances of Menil and Her Heart. We received $10,000 for making and delivering Menil and Her Heart from the Dragon Kim Foundation. Our indigneous written and performed community plays have earned both Isabella and Sophia their Girl Scout Gold Awards. We have just started writing for grants for our initiative including recent grants submitted the San Manuel Tribe to fund story making ($75,000) and Center for Cultural Power ($25,000), and the Morongo Tribe ($10,000) which we are waiting to hear on.The proposed seed funding from Solve will lead to a National Institutes of Health SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) mechanism, Phase I, grant partnering with Influents Innovations to move forward and integrate our conceptualized coaching process with the archived multimedia stories within the T-BIDS platform