"Cindy Eggleton has always believed in the power of a story. But the CEO and co-founder of Brilliant Cities, a Detroit-based early childhood development nonprofit that supports learning in underserved communities, never expected someone to tell hers. And definitely not in a sleek documentary with a slick soundtrack and plenty of images of other Detroit institutions, such as General Motors, Diana Ross, and the historic Fox Theatre."
""Storytelling is how we're able to draw people in and get them to connect to a deeper truth about themselves or about the world or a problem that needs to be solved," said Elevate Prize Foundation CEO Carolina Jayaram Garcia. "It's connecting those issues back to you as a human and not saying, 'Well, that's their problem. That's all the way over there.' The story allows it to be human.""
Cindy Eggleton leads Brilliant Cities, a Detroit nonprofit focused on early childhood learning in underserved communities, and participated in a documentary to honor her late mother. Nonprofits face an increasingly uncertain funding landscape and are elevating storytelling and production values for videos and podcasts to connect with donors large and small. The Elevate Prize Foundation launched Elevate Studios to produce documentaries, and its series "Nevertheless: The Women Changing the World" generated more than 3 million YouTube views and plans a second season for summer 2026. Storytelling is framed as a tool to humanize problems and draw audiences into action. Philanthropic support for storytelling has persisted for decades.
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