ChangeStream Media creates digital media to promote education, improve health, and advance social justice worldwide.
ChangeStream Media is a volunteer-powered storytelling collective. We partner with grassroots groups that are doing great work, but don’t have the resources to spread their messages through digital media. We collaborate with these leaders to create compelling and memorable videos, audio productions, and photo collections to amplify life-changing information. Since 2011, we have completed media projects in 14 countries and taught digital storytelling workshops for nonprofits in Seattle. Our projects have reached hundreds of thousands of people around the world.
Values
ChangeStream Media’s guiding principles are:
- Serving and centering the communities we partner with to create content
- Sharing stories honestly and authentically to elevate change makers
- Sustainable storytelling that builds the capacity of organizations and empowers individuals
Impact
“Honduras Child Alliance is a volunteer-powered NGO providing educational enrichment projects to impoverished children in El Porvenir, Honduras. ChangeStream Media came to Honduras and created videos to assist with recruiting volunteers and project sponsors. In just a few short minutes they give a clear and upbeat depiction of our projects, and jumpstart the process of recruiting volunteers and sponsors. ChangeStream Media took the time to truly know our volunteers and the children who they work with, and their depiction of the genuine relationships shines through in both videos. We appreciate the work that was done and find that it positively impacts our projects on a daily basis.”
— Eve Horowitz, Executive Director & Founder of Honduras Child Alliance
“ChangeStream Media’s video work provides CCAF with a wider audience in the region, and connections to funding and technical support from around the world. The volunteers from IDEA Project, based in Hong Kong, viewed my fundraising video, and this has motivated them to work with children in rural areas in Cambodia. ChangeStream Media also made a video to help my staff improve their teaching. Because they provide information to donors about how we serve rural children, I believe we will receive more support through these documentaries.”
— Hing Channarith: CEO & Founder of Cambodian Children’s Advocacy Foundation
Our History
In 2011, Denise Miller and Sean Koenig collaborated with local organizations in Cambodia to create four Khmer-language videos that have reached scores of educators in formal training sessions. This content spurred changes in government policy, and inspired education leaders to implement improved teaching strategies in schools across the country. Confident that small film crews using consumer electronics can create and distribute meaningful content, ChangeStream Media incorporated as a nonprofit organization in Washington state in 2011. We transitioned into a volunteer collective in 2024.
Our Team
Denise Miller, co-founder
Denise sees her work with ChangeStream Media as the perfect application of her experience in media, strategic communications, and education. She has led advocacy campaigns in 13 countries, and trained hundreds of activists in social media and video production. A graduate of the University of Southern California’s journalism school, Denise has produced multimedia packages and award-winning articles as a staff reporter in Snoqualmie, Washington; written for publications in Arizona, Seattle, and Spain; and worked on the Los Angeles Times Magazine’s research team. The Seattle Times, Forbes, and Fodor’s are among the many publications that have featured Denise’s photographs. Passionate about teaching and connecting with communities around the world, she has worked as an educator in Madrid and Seoul. At YWCA Seattle | King | Snohomish, Denise built a StoryCorps oral history archive featuring people who have been affected by homelessness. She has also led strategic communications campaigns for community health and public health programs in Washington state.
Sean Koenig, co-founder
Sean has a long history of working at the intersection of media, finance and charitable projects. As business manager for a weekly newspaper at the University of Virginia, he eliminated a $10,000 debt through aggressive marketing of advertising space; designed advertising layouts; and published 12 feature articles. After earning an M.Sc. in biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego, he discovered a passion for travel and volunteerism. As the canvass director of the Miami office of the Fund for Public Interest Research, Sean trained hundreds of employees, organized rallies, held press conferences, and lobbied members of congress. Having raised over $500,000 for groups like Greenpeace and Save the Children, he decided to assist communities worldwide directly, leading disaster response teams in Bangladesh, Haiti and Indonesia with All Hands Volunteers. Sean puts his diverse skill set to work for communities and grassroots organizations creating a better tomorrow.