Using Web-based storytelling, our 32-year-old foundation encourages individuals and groups to record, share and archive their stories to demonstrate their ethnic, cultural and/or civic pride for the benefit of family, friends, associates and future generations. We invest more than half of the membership revenue generated by our legacy preservation component to improve K–12 social studies instruction; all schools participate for free.
Leveraging the public’s interest in legacy preservation gives us the funds we need to continue our education mission. The history of our nation is deeply tied to immigration, and ancestors of all Americans came here from diverse locations. Legacy stories share these experiences and offer insight, helping make history come alive for today’s students. Moreover, by researching and writing legacy stories, students learn more about the ethnic and cultural groups that make up their community and the people and organizations that contribute to its well-being.
Our current resource and marketing partners are the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH), the nation’s largest Irish-Catholic fraternal organization; the Texas State Historical Association; the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation; CollegeSave; and LegacyStories. Other organizations are in the pipeline.
Our business model has two income components. The first is the $24.50 one-time payment to join Americans All and the second is a monthly $4 subscription to the Social Legacy Network (SLN), which provides additional educational resources and includes CollegeSave.
To support our pilot with AOH, we request a loan/investment (can be incremental) of $75,000 to produce videos and create the architecture for our grade-level-specific databases that meet state social studies content standards.
Relevant documents:
Program summary and student benefits
AOH support letters and brochure