Re-Storying Disaster
From Disruption to Regeneration
Disasters—whether wildfires, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, or other disruptions—leave more than physical destruction in their wake. They upend lives, fracture communities, and challenge our collective sense of belonging. Recovery is not just about rebuilding structures; it’s about reweaving the social fabric of community and restoring hope.
For decades, NewStories has worked alongside communities navigating the aftermath of disasters. We’ve helped people build lives and communities in Zimbabwe in the midst of political upheaval and economic collapse. We’ve worked alongside people in Fukushima and across Japan as they reimagined their future after the March 11, 2011 Triple Disasters. We’ve accompanied grassroots community leaders across the Americas as they have found a way forward after things have fallen apart. And, of course, in our homelands of the west in the US, we have shown up to help people imagine what their lives might be after the devastation of wildfire.
We call our work Re-Storying Disaster
- Our Regenerative Responders Initiative is for people everywhere on the planet working to co-create regenerative responses and strategies to disaster. They share learning, stories, challenges, and opportunities as peers inside an action-learning community. Participants can also engage in a curriculum developed by NewStories and field experts, enabling members to earn a Regenerative Responder Certification while building pathways from crisis response to lasting community resilience.
- With Bioregional Wildfire Collaboratory Partnerships we are part of kindling bioregional approaches to support communities before, during and after disasters. With partners in Northern California, we have launched the Northern California Fire-Affected Communities Collaboratory.
- We accompany communities able to invest in regenerative approaches with Coaching and Consulting Services tailored to their own individual conditions, needs, and contexts.
NewStories is invited into communities in times of crisis to help illuminate pathways forward. We counteract the silos that often emerge post-disaster by fostering collaboration, shared learning, and collective action. Our approach integrates immediate recovery efforts with long-term regeneration, ensuring that rebuilding is not just about physical infrastructure but about strengthening the relationships and systems that sustain a thriving community.
Regenerative Responders
NewStories invites you to join a global network of Regenerative Responders—grassroots leaders committed to community-led recovery through regenerative principles and strategies. Real recovery isn’t about replacement—it’s about reckoning, reimagining, and rebuilding with care. It’s slow, it’s relational, and it doesn’t come with a manual. Regenerative Responders are the ones leaning into that complexity. They’re not waiting for permission. They’re weaving resilience from the ground up.
Launching June 2025, the Regenerative Responders Initiative offers:
-
A peer-powered learning community—where we talk about what we’re trying, what’s breaking, and what’s breaking open.
-
Courses and hands-on workshops with master practitioners in systems thinking, trauma-informed facilitation, ecological design, and narrative transformation.
-
A Regenerative Responder Certification rooted not in theory, but in lived, messy, on-the-ground work.
Together, we’ll cultivate capacities for guiding post-disaster regeneration—from grief to growth, from collapse to connection. Through spiral processes of reflection and experimentation, participants will become the next generation of leaders ready to walk with, not ahead of, communities in transition.
This isn’t about heroic saviors or neat solutions. It’s about becoming the kind of leader who can stay present in the rubble and the regeneration.
So ask yourself:
-
Are you ready to stop pretending normal is coming back?
-
Are you willing to be changed by what’s breaking down—and what’s breaking through?
-
Are you a Regenerative Responder? Follow the link to join as a co-creator, a funder or a participant.
Bioregional Collaboratories
NewStories was invited into Northern California after the massive fires in Napa and Sonoma Counties in October of 2017. In the years since we have had the opportunity to help design and facilitate a wide range of gatherings where people come together to imagine and work to create new futures which don’t simply replace what’s been lost, but builds healthy and resilient futures. Working with many partners, NewStories is the backbone organization for the new Northern California Fire-Affected Communities Collaboratory.
We envision this as the first of a network of bioregional collaboratories – stewarding learning and action in their own regions while also connecting across regions. We imagine these collaboratories as community-driven networks that reimagines relationship with wildfire. Born from local wisdom and lived experience, these bioregional collaboratories aim to transform how communities prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters by fostering self-determination, collective advocacy, and regenerative approaches.
Right now our emphasis is on getting the Northern California Collaboratory off the ground, while also reaching out to communities in the LA region after the January 2025 fires and beginning outreach to efforts in Cascadia. These collaboratories of diverse stakeholders across fire-affected communities are a foundation for developing replicable, equitable systems that center community needs while leveraging shared resources.
NewStories started this collaboratory with Northern California communities because we have partnered with them for more than 7 years. They have faced unprecedented wildfire challenges for more than a decade now. 15 out of the 20 most destructive wildfires in California history have occurred in the past 10 years, and 13 occurred in Northern California. Of the top 20 largest California wildfires by acreage, 14 occurred in Northern California. The growing frequency and ferocity of these fires reveal systemic gaps in disaster mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. What’s more, in 2025, changes in federal policies point to a decrease in support that looks very daunting.
Watch for seed stories from this first collaboratory and Contact NewStories for more information.
Coaching and Consulting Services
With our own staff and core team, as well as with people from our extended networks, NewStories provides direct support to communities facing disaster. We accompany communities — not as outside experts, but as thinking partners, helping you convene your communities to discover possibilities in the destruction, support you as you process the grief and trauma of loss, listening with you as you develop new visions and strategies for making those visions real.
NewStories is a living ecosystem of process artists: facilitators, storytellers, coaches, and systems stewards who cultivate the conditions for collective healing, creative emergence, and community-led transformation. Through story, relationship, and accompaniment, we support people in reweaving the social fabric, reclaiming agency, and regenerating cultures that nourish both people and planet.
We’d love to have a conversation with you about what else is possible before, during and after disasters. Contact NewStories for more
Why New Stories
- Experience: With more than 20 years of experience, NewStories has worked with communities around the world in post-disaster recovery and regeneration.
- Compassionate Approach: Our team brings deep care and commitment to each community, ensuring that recovery efforts are place-based and trauma-informed.
- Proven Impact: Our place-based and context specific approach fosters stronger, more resilient communities by centering local wisdom and leadership.