Loren Rutherford joins Folktale as Strategic Partnership Manager to help expand Folktale’s reach and impact

Folktale is excited to announce that Loren Rutherford has joined us as Strategic Partnership Manager. She will play an integral role in scaling Folktale’s customer base through partnerships with strategic stakeholders and organizations.

Loren brings with her over 20 years of experience in strategic leadership positions across industries ranging from tourism and sustainability to government and global development. These experiences shape her unique lens both from the perspective of funders as well as non-governmental organizations.

“I've been on both sides, in an NGO recipient, and on the funding side in government. When working in the NGO space, I often felt like I was part of a compliance machine where you would write a lot of reports that hardly anybody read. I see how Folktale can bring reports to life, while also making it easier for people on the ground to easily capture stories and qualitative data,” she said.

Loren is excited to use her experience to introduce Folktale’s value of story for organizations to monitor, evaluate and communicate their impact. We spoke to Loren to discover what drives her, how the platform can help advance efforts to localize global development and her hopes for Folktale’s future.

In what ways do you think Folktale can be a game-changer for organizations?

Having worked for the government on the funding side during the COVID-19 pandemic, it would have been great to be able to see the faces and hear the voices of the people we were funding. We didn't get that because we weren't able to travel, so everything we did was through a third party. We missed those vital in-person conversations that often bring to life the depth and insights of projects that we fund. We are entering a period of carbon budgets (less travel) and some fiscal austerity. Covid broke down many barriers around digital communication and I think video is a vital tool we will continue to use.

Collecting stories and qualitative data can be really difficult; translating the human side and perspectives - the things that make people’s eyes light up – you don't get these responses in the written word.User-generated content can be associated with bad quality, or the narrative is hard to understand, and it's traditionally very expensive to engage a film crew. Our team has made the Folktale platform intuitive and easy to use by incorporating step-by-step guidance for contributors to share their reports and stories, and for organizations to collect and view story submissions.

What motivated you to join Folktale?

I've always been curious about how to connect different actors engaged in global development and to help make those interactions and collaborations more effective. How can the government, NGOs, and the private sector all communicate effectively? There is a real opportunity to enhance communication and shared understanding using Folktale.?

The Folktale platform is currently being used by organizations to bring community voices into the boardroom – to connect funders and participants. We see a range of opportunities beyond global development into other sectors such as philanthropy and ESG. That's what got me excited about this role, my curiosity about all the ways Folktale can be applied in different organizations and thinking “here's a tool that can have a significant impact for people at all levels.”

What are your hopes for Folktale for the next few years?

I hope that Folktale becomes the go-to platform for organizations to communicate and demonstrate their on-the-ground impact – because that’s often the biggest struggle. I’d like to see it scale and continue to provide a way to highlight that much-needed authenticity of voice from those involved with a program. I also know that program managers do their best with report writing, but sometimes you [as a funder] need to understand what’s most important by hearing directly from the people the programs are designed to serve. Ultimately, funders want to understand why the activity is important and why they should fund it.?

How could Folktale help advance localization in a meaningful way and support more inclusive project design from the get-go?

Folktale can play a significant role in localization efforts by supporting as an essential enabler for effective development and change. As the use of mobile devices and the spread of connectivity increase, the sector is starting to re-evaluate how we work and how we travel – trends that have only been accelerated by the pandemic. Enabling communities to directly report on events that affect them is powerful and I hope to be a part of this “new normal” moving forward. Do people need to be flying as much as they were [before the pandemic]? Does it need to be an outsider translating other people's experiences? It’s important to give people a platform to directly report on things that affect them.

And what’s really exciting is Folktale’s potential for supporting inclusive program design right from the start of a project through to its implementation and evaluation. It gives you a straightforward and cost-effective way to ask people “what’s your priority? What should we be working on?”. Project scoping often takes place at HQ – Wellington, Washington, or Canberra. I think Folktale has a lot of potential applications to assist bottom-up design and participatory methods.

What has surprised you most during your first few weeks with Folktale?

I've been really impressed by the commitment to values and how aligned the organization is with global development – which is the sector I’ve deliberately focused my career on. I love that Folktale has a commitment to ethical tech, data sovereignty, and an informed consent process. Most recently, I've been working for the government in the trade and commercialization space, so it's been great to get back into the world of global development and feel like I’m home.