Projects & Partners
"Brooklyn Story Lab has been a trusted partner in helping make our UN event come alive."
— Rosemary Gudelj, Water.org, Senior Advisor, Public Affairs
RACE FOR OCEANS, D.C.
The Anacostia River in the nation’s capital is one of the country’s most polluted waterways. D.C.-based development firm Chemonics partnered with three Washington-area nonprofits — Anacostia Riverkeeper, Reading Partners, DC, and the Water Environment Federation — to tackle the river’s massive marine plastic pollution, as part of UNLEASH Lab’s global Race for Oceans campaign. Watch the Brooklyn Story Lab video that captures the story of why these disparate groups came together to preserve both a local ecosystem and the planet’s oceans.
BLUE PLANET ALLIANCE
Imagine a world with no carbon-based fuels. Blue Planet Alliance is working to achieve that — and it’s not just a quixotic quest. Its founder, Henk Rogers (pictured above), led the movement to help Hawai’i become the first U.S. state to legislatively mandate a transition to 100% renewable energy by 2045. Soon after, more than 20 states and U.S. territories followed suit. Now BPA is working with other island entities — like UN Member States Tonga and Tuvalu, and U.S. territory Guam — to help them ditch fossil fuels, too. Once it has 10 jurisdictions onboard, the wind will be at their back, and the momentum unstoppable.
GLASGOW CALEDONIAN UNIVERSITY
The UN Sustainable Development Goals are a blueprint for making sure no one on the planet is left behind by 2030. Glasgow Caledonian University is a Scottish institution that has adopted the SDGs as its core curriculum, and was the first Scottish university to sign the UN Global Compact. GCU’s focus on being the University for the Common Good has earned it high marks in academic circles: the school was ranked No. 1 in the UK and No. 4 in the world for Gender Equality (SDG5) and No. 21 in the world for Reduced Inequalities (SDG10). Plus, is there a cooler university chancellor on the planet than GCU’s Annie Lennox?
GNEC
Our planet has rarely seen challenges as complex and unnerving as we are facing now. It’s a perfect storm of crises, particularly for nonprofit organizations trying to help the world’s most vulnerable communities. The additional challenges posed by COVID and the climate crisis have pushed these NGOs to the brink. At least they have a trusted ally in the Global NGO Executive Committee. GNEC is a storied nonprofit that has, for 60 years, helped organizations like these be seen and heard at the United Nations. There are more than 1,500 members of GNEC, including some of the world’s most most recognized nonprofits, in every populated region of the planet. In this moment of dire global challenges, GNEC continues to be a dependable ally of those organizations fighting for the world’s neediest, afflicted people.
THE B TEAM
The New Leadership Playbook is a collection of stories, insights, and resources on 21st century business leadership, which Brooklyn Story Lab helped produce for The B Team. The B Team is a collective of some of the world's most renowned private sector and civil society leaders, working to catalyze better business practices for the well-being of people and planet. The New Leadership Playbook features case studies of some of the groundbreaking, brave, and transformative work in this field, as well as 10x Bolder, a conversation-based podcast series seeking to unlock how leaders align values with influence. Whether creating opportunities for refugees, implementing "open hiring" practices, or corralling heads of state toward greater climate ambition and action, these stories offer honesty, inspiration, and insights for current and emerging business leaders alike.
GOALS POST
In 2015, the UN adopted a blueprint for saving the planet, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a.k.a. the Global Goals. GOALS Post is a platform for showcasing the very best next-gen solutions to the world's most difficult challenges. Brooklyn Story Lab conceived and produced GOALS Post, creating a tent under which global nonprofit innovation labs — such as our launch partners Enactus and UNLEASH — could get more visibility and impact for the entrepreneurial solutions they incubate from next-gen leaders in more than 150 countries. The launch live event took place on the opening day of UNGA (UN General Assembly) 2021, and features three regional pairings of Enactus and UNLEASH talents (from Kenya, Mexico, and the U.S.), as well as other segments featuring global luminaries, including a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and the heads of two UN entities.
MOVING GIANTS
A South African nature reserve — about the size of Atlanta — had 200 elephants too many for its habitat to handle. A Mozambique national park — larger than Rhode Island — had almost none of these essential animals, a keystone species that helps ecosystems thrive. By translocating elephants from one to the other, both ecosystems could be saved. The Moving Giants platform captures all the elements of this dramatic wildlife solution, as well as elephant and conservation content from around the globe.
CIRCLEAROUND
Girl Scouts of the USA has been building American girls of character, confidence, and courage for more than a century. But GSUSA saw an opening for a digital-media platform aimed not at girls, but at adult women with Girl Scouts values. CircleAround abounds with stories of inspiring women: resilient businesswomen, innovative entrepreneurs, caring community leaders, and quiet heroes who shared their stories about navigating everything from parenthood to the pandemic.
EARTH’S CALL
In 2018, the UN issued a dire warning: global leaders in the public and private sectors needed to take drastic action to keep planetary temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius or Earth faced cataclysmic, irreversible consequences. Earth’s Call is a platform for finding and funding innovative solutions to the climate crisis, from regenerative, carbon-negative agriculture to a shift to 100% renewable energy by 2050 to protecting and restoring more of our terrestrial and marine ecosystems.
WORLD ELEPHANT DAY
World Elephant Day is a global social-awareness day that annually garners more than a billion social media impressions, all to help support organizations that are working to, among other things, stop the illegal poaching and trade of elephant ivory and other wildlife products and protect wild elephant habitats. Brooklyn Story Lab founder Lance Gould is on the board of the World Elephant Society (the 501(c)3 that governs World Elephant Day), and, for World Elephant Day’s 10th year (2021), Brooklyn Story Lab created the Big 5 campaign, highlighting the five issues of most importance to elephants’ survival.
ENACTUS
For almost 50 years, Enactus has taught 1.4 million students in almost 40 countries how to be entrepreneurial NextGen leaders “with a head for business and a heart for the world.” Annually, 72,000 students on 1,800 university campuses look for challenges to solve in their local communities. Teams develop entrepreneurial ideas around those challenges, tied to the UN SDGs, and teams compete in 36 countries. The winners from each country face off in the annual Enactus World Cup. Brooklyn Story Lab is developing a collaborative youth-solutions platform, with Enactus as a lead partner.
MOBILE FILM FESTIVAL
The philosophy of the Mobile Film Festival can be summed up in six words: “1 Mobile, 1 Minute, 1 Film.” It’s a democratic approach to filmmaking, one in which creativity bests big-budget productions shot with expensive equipment. The philosophy clearly resonates, as since 2015, the festival has received almost 6,000 film submissions from 151 countries, generated 134 million video views, and distributed €310,000 in prize money to young filmmakers. Brooklyn Story Lab is helping to produce upcoming festival editions on climate change, as well as regional editions in Africa and LatAm.
UNLEASH
UNLEASH is an annual convening of 1,000 young thought leaders and sustainability experts from more than 150 countries, who form teams and come up with entrepreneurial solutions to the UN SDGs. Brooklyn Story Lab has been involved since the 2017 launch in Denmark, also attending subsequent in-person editions in Singapore (2018), China (2019), and India (2022), as well as virtual editions during the pandemic. Among other milestones, we ran social media campaigns that made #UNLEASH the No. 1 trending topic in Denmark and Singapore; produced events with Nobel Peace Prize and Oscar-winning keynote speakers; helped develop a digital magazine on which hundreds of UNLEASHers share stories; and taught storytelling seminars for hundreds.
MY CODA
The COVID-19 pandemic caused widespread global destruction on so many levels. One group particularly impacted was artists, whose livelihood earned via live performances was severely curtailed. MY CODA is an in-development storytelling platform for musicians, which allows them to connect, virtually, to their fan bases in curated meet and greets, while also helping their philanthropic efforts. Brooklyn Story Lab produced a joint effort with MY CODA and Giving Tuesday, the annual global day of giving, interviewing star artists such as Angelique Kidjo (Batonga Foundation), Goo Goo Dolls (Music Is Art), and Blue October (MusiCares) about their charitable work. The interviews were featured on Giving Tuesday’s global livestream event.
THE COMMUNITY
When the world seems overwhelmingly chaotic, it can be reassuring to hear from wise, sagacious thought leaders. Nobel Peace Prize laureate José Ramos-Horta is such a leader, and he helped assemble a roundtable of sorts, harnessing the wisdom of some of the planet’s most esteemed citizens — his fellow Nobel laureates. The Community is a hub for international insight on peacekeeping and peace building, with a reputation in human rights and peace-building circles for the ability to launch effective online actions, and rally the international media on critical issues. Some 27 Nobel Peace Prize laureates have participated in the site’s projects. Brooklyn Story Lab is working with The Community on innovative op-ed thought leadership strategies.
YUNUS SOCIAL BUSINESS
A “social business” is a business with a social mission at its core, 100% dedicated to solving human problems. The idea was pioneered by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, who co-founded Yunus Social Business with CEO Saskia Bruysten to grow and finance social businesses worldwide. Brooklyn Story Lab helped YSB prepare and deliver an exhaustive research effort on global social businesses at the World Economic Forum in Davos, as well as helped disseminate its critically important findings, such as the idea of intrapreneurs, who work to affect social-good change within massive corporations, like social good soldiers in a Trojan horse.
FOURTH SECTOR GROUP
Most economies comprise three sectors: the public (government), the private (business), and a nonprofit (civil society) sector. The Fourth Sector Group (4SG) is a global multi-stakeholder platform aimed at accelerating the development of a nascent fourth sector, which combines market-based principles of the private sector with the social/environmental aims of the public and nonprofit sectors to address pressing problems. Brooklyn Story Lab worked with 4SG on a wide array of communications, from its website and social media to white papers, op-eds, and conference collateral materials, showcasing the importance of for-benefit businesses.
GLOBAL CITIZEN & WATER
Toilets can transform the world. The thought may lead to giggles, but think about the impact toilets have on society. This was the topic of a 2019 UN Week event jointly hosted by Water.org, Global Citizen, and Reckitt Benckiser, and moderated by Brooklyn Story Lab founder Lance Gould. When schools in the developing world do not have bathrooms, for example, young girls who have started menstruating drop out by the millions. Similarly, a lack of bathrooms can lead to a rise in open defecation. The event featured luminaries from the political and artistic worlds, including former PM of Australia Kevin Rudd and Nigerian musicians DJ Cuppy and Falana.
IUCN
The IUCN is the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the global guardian of the natural world. The IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species is, for example, the planet’s most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of plant and animal species (identifying which species are endangered, threatened, or worse). Brooklyn Story Lab founder Lance Gould is a commissioner (three-year term, volunteer position) on the IUCN’s Commission on Education and Communication (CEC), which drives change for the co-creation of sustainable solutions through leading communication platforms, such as the #NatureForAll hashtag, a global movement to inspire love of nature.
UN WOMEN
UN Women, a UN entity, is the global champion for gender equality, working to develop and uphold standards and create an environment in which every woman and girl can live up to her full potential. Having worked with the entity for many years while at HuffPost, Brooklyn Story Lab founder Lance Gould moderated a series of panels in Botswana called the W Summit, hosted by UN Women at the Botswana National Museum. Panels focused on women in business leadership, and highlighted sustainable economic growth opportunities for women in developing countries. Brooklyn Story Lab also secured UN Women support for another of its projects, UNLEASH Innovation Lab.
92ND STREET Y
The 92nd Street Y is a world-class cultural and community center where for over 140 years people all over the globe have connected through culture, arts, entertainment and conversation. 92Y has been a trailblazer in both social-good efforts (it hosts the Social Good Summit every year during UN Week) and leaderless New Power movements (having helped launch the global day of giving, Giving Tuesday). And when 92Y wanted to launch a new initiative on social media, they came to Brooklyn Story Lab. In partnership with Hashtag Roundup, we helped turn 92Y’s #my100days motivational campaign for good — a social initiative designed to inspire transformative actions — to a Top 3 trend on Twitter.
LIBRA PROJECT
Libra Project is the green renewable energy utility of the future. Headquartered in the United Arab Emirates, the coming-to-market, for-profit Libra Project aims to amass and sustain distressed renewable-energy plants in the developing world, keeping carbon-free renewable power available to 100 million people in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. A member of the United Nations Global Compact, Libra Project abides by UN Sustainable Development Goal principles, particularly SDG 7, Affordable and Clean Energy.
IREX
The International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX) is an international, nonprofit organization that specializes in global education and development, working with partners in more than 100 countries in such areas as empowering youth and strengthening institutions. IREX runs exchange programs all over the world, and Brooklyn Story Lab designed and facilitated a program for journalists from the Republic of Georgia to meet with their American media colleagues in New York, at CNN, Slate, and the Bklyner newspaper.
EAT FORUM
The EAT Forum is a science-based global platform for food-system transformation. The Norwegian organization has an essential conference annually in Sweden, bringing together experts in the politics, business, science, and joy of food, including political leaders, rock stars, farmers, journalists, and celebrity chefs. Brooklyn Story Lab helped handle communications and compile video interviews of key attendees, from Irish singer-activist Bob Geldof to Mauritius head of state Ameenah Gurib.
