Window Seat Media

Window Seat Media is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in the South Sound region of the Pacific Northwest, specifically located on the ancestral lands of the Squaxin Island, Coast Salish, Chehalis, Nisqually, and Puyallup peoples. The organization was founded in 2016 with a mission to harness the power of storytelling to foster community connection, spark conversations, and promote social change through community oral history and storytelling.

Mission and Values

Window Seat Media's core mission is centered on gathering and sharing stories that have been forgotten, silenced, or ignored throughout history. The organization emphasizes local community responsiveness, ensuring that projects are co-created with community partners and responsive to the community's needs. It also prioritizes ethical story stewardship, ensuring that stories are handled with artistic and ethical integrity, always seeking feedback and ongoing consent from storytellers before sharing their narratives.

Other key values include collective memory activism, highlighting diverse perspectives to combat biases and stereotypes, and equitable organizing, incorporating antiracist practices into its organizational structure. The organization values people over productivity and seeks to deepen understanding of systemic racism and oppression.

Activities and Projects

Window Seat Media engages in a variety of mediums to tell stories, including live storytelling, theatre performances, community conversations, artistic collaborations, podcasts, film screenings, exhibits, and more. The organization offers workshops on oral history, multimedia storytelling, organizational storytelling, community-building, and media literacy. These workshops are custom-designed to meet the specific needs of participants.

Notable initiatives include a community oral history project about visionaries and change-makers, as well as projects honoring the voices of South Sound elders. Additionally, the organization explores cultural heritage through food traditions and local foodways in workshop series.

Governance and Structure

Window Seat Media operates with a shared leadership model, as a Worker Self-Directed nonprofit. This structure emphasizes collaboration and synergy among its members, valuing relationships, multi-disciplinary collaboration, equity, transparency, and trust.

Funding

As a nonprofit, Window Seat Media relies on donations and support from funders, grant providers, project participants, and community donors. Contributions are tax-deductible and crucial for maintaining ongoing community programming with access-for-all and sliding-scale pricing. The organization offers various sponsorship levels, from "Friends" to "Champions," providing recognition and benefits to supporters.

Window Seat Media's efforts aim to co-create a more inclusive, connected, and just world by promoting storytelling that celebrates the unique experiences and contributions of diverse community members.