Strategic storytelling can shape your organization, build connection, and bring about change. In our recent departmental leadership lecture, Adena J. White, APR, shared ways you can tell authentic stories that share diverse perspectives, build connection, create a sense of belonging, and lead to positive change. 
Adena J. White is an accredited public relations professional and social-impact storyteller with 15 years of experience leading communications efforts for place-based nonprofit organizations. She has seen the impact of strategic storytelling first-hand, in her work.
In 2017, Adena founded Blackbelt Media to tell the stories of changemakers working to make the South a better place for all. Blackbelt Media produces the Blackbelt Voices podcast, which tells stories from and about Black folks down South that honor Black history, celebrate Black Southern culture, and shape the future of the region. Since it launched in September 2019, the podcast has been featured by Apple Podcasts, Oprah Daily, and Vanity Fair.
Through Blackbelt Media, Adena contracts with cause-driven organizations across the South on storytelling and strategic communication. She joined the Excel by Eight team in July 2022 as its communications director and has provided communications support to the Arkansas Black Philanthropy Collaborative since May 2021.
Adena spent much of her career working for the Conway Area Chamber of Commerce, serving as its director of communications for nearly a decade before transitioning to a part-time role as editor of its subsidiary, Conway Publications Inc. She began her public relations career at the University of Arkansas System’s Winthrop Rockefeller Institute.
To learn more about Ms. White’s Blackbelt Voices podcast, see the story below from graduate student, Sarah Coleman.
Voices of Change – AY Magazine
Black American history is often discounted from retellings of history, though it is often said the world does not move without Black creativity. Adena White, editor of Conway Publications through the Conway Chamber of Commerce and co-host of Blackbelt Voices, celebrates Black culture and heritage year-round through a passion project turned podcast.
