Soul Stories

What Soul Stories does

Soul Stories is a Denver, Colorado-based 501c3 nonprofit founded in 2014 by Danny Mazur, a Master of Social Work (MSW) credentialed facilitator and storyteller. The organization delivers a preventative, evidence-based, and trauma-informed Mental Health Storytelling Program targeting middle and high school-aged youth from marginalized backgrounds, including foster care youth, low-income youth, immigrant and refugee/asylee youth, and youth with chronic illness. Programming is concentrated along the Colorado front range via direct partnerships with public, alternative, charter, and facility schools, as well as youth-serving nonprofits.

The core product is a curriculum of up to twelve weeks of recurring workshops built on a Four Pillars framework — Play, Coping Strategies, Storytelling, and Performance — that integrates Social Emotional Learning, Narrative Therapy, and Dr. Judith Herman's Stages of Trauma Recovery. Delivery is in-person and facilitator-led (currently a team of about seven staff including a Director of Youth Curriculum, Youth Program Director, and Creative Director), using play-based activities, personal story writing, facilitated sharing, and creative expression. Students are not required to disclose personal trauma, and graduates can join a paid Youth Advisory Board with a pathway to becoming trained youth facilitators. Documented outcomes from Denver Public Schools students show 97% found sessions valuable, 93% learned peer-support skills, and 98% would recommend the program. Supplementary products include teacher and organizational trainings, one-off workshops, semester and year-long programming, customized packages, and a five-season podcast.

Soul Stories is a donation- and grant-funded nonprofit (accepting contributions through Colorado Gives) with a financial partner base that includes the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment, Rose Community Foundation, Colorado Health Foundation, and Colorado Trust. Its flagship institutional customer is the Colorado Department of Education: Office for Facility Schools, a partnership renewed for three consecutive years. Revenue is not publicly disclosed, no venture or private equity funding is indicated, and operations are governed by a volunteer Board of Directors. Geographic reach is currently single-country/domestic (Colorado front range), and the organization has served over 6,000 people across 175 events and workshops since inception, including 900 youth ages 12-21 over the past four years.

Name

Soul Stories

Legal name

Soul Stories

Website

https://soulstoriesdenver.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2014

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Soul Stories is a Denver-based nonprofit founded in 2014 that delivers a trauma-informed Mental Health Storytelling Program to middle and high school students from marginalized backgrounds. It partners with schools, the Colorado Department of Education, and regional foundations across Colorado's front range.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Youth Mental Health Services

NAICS

Child and Youth Services (62411), Other Individual and Family Services (624190)

SIC

Services-Social Services (8300)

akta.pro primary industry

Spoken Word & Performance Poetry Workshops (EDAMAMAM)

akta.pro secondary industries

Mindfulness-Based Coaching & Training (MBSR/MBCT-style) (HSADAJAB), Writing Critique Groups & Peer Workshops (EDAMAMAJ), Creative Nonfiction & Memoir Workshops (EDAMAMAC), Children’s & YA Writing Workshops (EDAMAMAF)

Keywords

• Youth mental health services
• Social emotional learning
• Storytelling workshops
• Trauma informed programs
• Youth development programs

Headquarters

HQ city

Denver

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Others

Revenue model

1. Donations and Grants: Soul Stories is a nonprofit organization that relies on donations (accepting contributions through Colorado Gives) and grant funding to sustain operations and provide mental health programming to underserved youth.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels7 records

Core offering

Soul Stories delivers an in-person Mental Health Storytelling Program for middle and high school students, structured around four pillars (Play, Coping Strategies, Storytelling, Performance) and grounded in Social Emotional Learning, Narrative Therapy, and trauma recovery frameworks. The organization also produces The Soul Stories Podcast across five seasons and offers teacher trainings, one-off workshops, semester/year-long programming, and customized packages to schools and youth-serving nonprofits throughout the Colorado Front Range.

Product overview

Soul Stories is a nonprofit organization offering a suite of mental health and youth development programs centered on storytelling as a vehicle for healing and connection. The core offering is the Mental Health Storytelling Program, a 12-week curriculum for middle and high school students that incorporates play-based activities, personal story writing, facilitated sharing, and creative expression. The organization also produces The Soul Stories Podcast across five seasons covering themes of mental health, healing, cultural reckoning, and change-making. Supplementary offerings include teacher and organizational trainings, one-off workshops, semester and year-long programming partnerships, and customized packages for schools and youth-serving organizations throughout the Denver metro area.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Mental Health Storytelling Program A preventative, evidence-based, trauma-informed program for middle and high school students utilizing Social Emotional Learning, Narrative Therapy, and Dr. Judith Herman's Stages of Trauma Recovery. The program offers up to twelve weeks of recurring workshops incorporating play-based activities, personal story writing, facilitated sharing, and creative expression to build emotional regulation, empathy, and positive peer relationships. Delivered to schools and youth-serving organizations throughout the Colorado Front Range.
• One-off Workshops Individual workshop sessions for schools and organizations seeking introductory mental health storytelling experiences for youth, providing a one-time engagement with the Mental Health Storytelling Program methodology.
• Semester and Year-Long Programming Extended curriculum partnerships with schools providing sustained mental health storytelling programming throughout academic terms, allowing for deeper integration of the Four Pillars Curriculum (Play, Coping Strategies, Storytelling, Performance) into school schedules.
• Teacher & Organizational Trainings Professional development offerings for educators and youth-serving organizations to implement mental health storytelling practices, including training on program delivery and integration into existing school structures.
• Customized Packages Tailored mental health storytelling programs designed to suit the specific needs and contexts of partner communities, including customizations for specialized populations such as foster care youth, youth with trauma/abuse experiences, and youth with chronic illness.
• The Soul Stories Podcast A multi-season podcast featuring personal stories on mental health, healing, cultural reckoning, and change makers. Hosted by Danny Mazur and produced by Kamga Tchassa, with episodes exploring topics including immigration, racial identity, trauma recovery, and community empowerment. Distributed via Apple Podcasts.

Quantifiable outcome

• 97% of DPS students say the session was valuable to them
• +4 more outcomes

Named customers4 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature3 records

Partnerships

Eight partnerships are on record, tiered flagship, core and minor.

• Colorado Department of Education: Office for Facility SchoolsflagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerFlagship partnership for three consecutive years serving foster care youth, youth who have experienced severe trauma and abuse, and youth with chronic illness. The organization has been providing Mental Health Storytelling Programming to students served by this office since 2021.
• William Smith High SchoolcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartner school where Soul Stories conducted mental health storytelling workshops. Assistant Principal Chelseas Audin provided testimonial praising the program's impact on student vulnerability, peer relationships, and community building.
• Denver Public Schools (DPS)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerOngoing partnership to serve DPS students with mental health storytelling programming. Documented outcomes include 97% of students finding sessions valuable, 93% learning skills to support friends, and 98% willing to recommend the program.
• Colorado Coalition Against Sexual AssaultcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartnered in April 2019 to host 'un/pact: a creative dialogue on consent' - a storytelling event featuring poets and creatives sharing narratives on consent. This became an annual event held during Sexual Assault Awareness Month.
• Colorado Department of Public Health & EnvironmentcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerListed as a partner organization supporting Soul Stories' mental health programming for youth.
• ArtibusminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerListed as a partner organization.
• University of DenverminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerListed as a partner organization in the Soul Stories network.
• Anythink LibrariesminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerListed as a partner organization in the Soul Stories network.

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• The Jed Foundation: The Jed Foundation promotes youth emotional health and suicide prevention through school and campus programs, overlapping with Soul Stories' preventative mental health focus on adolescents and young adults.
• Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility: Morningside Center delivers SEL and restorative justice curricula to NYC schools through teacher training and direct classroom programming, directly comparable to Soul Stories' school-based SEL delivery.
• 826 National: 826 National is a youth creative writing and storytelling nonprofit with chapter-based school and community programming, comparable in mission and delivery (workshop-based youth storytelling) though broader in craft-writing scope.
• Narrative 4: Narrative 4 uses personal storytelling and story-exchange methodology to build empathy and connection among youth, closely paralleling Soul Stories' narrative-therapy based mental health storytelling approach.
• Inner Explorer: Inner Explorer delivers daily mindfulness and SEL practice to K-12 classrooms, comparable as a school-district SEL provider, though more standardized and tech-enabled than Soul Stories' workshop model.
• Active Minds: Active Minds is a youth-led mental health nonprofit that activates student peer networks on K-12 and college campuses, sharing Soul Stories' school-based, peer-facilitated mental health model but at much larger scale.

Broad incumbents

• Committee for Children (Second Step): Committee for Children is a large incumbent SEL provider whose Second Step curriculum is used in tens of thousands of schools, representing the established packaged-SEL competition Soul Stories must differentiate against.
• StoryCorps: StoryCorps is a national storytelling nonprofit that captures and shares personal stories for human connection; broader in scope and scale than Soul Stories but adjacent in using narrative as social-emotional infrastructure.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Facebookfacebook.com/soulsandstories
• Instagraminstagram.com/soulstoriesdenver

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles7 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Soul Stories