Our Mission
MarLo builds the capacity of young people, and the adults who support them, to move from story to strategy to action.
Using public narrative and community organizing frameworks, participants learn to identify the values rooted in their experiences, communicate those values through authentic, purposeful stories, and translate them into strategic campaigns with clear goals and pathways toward measurable change.
LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT • CAPACITY-BUILDING • STORYTELLING •
Services
Storytelling Capacity Building
Participants are introduced to the public narrative framework and explore how lived experiences can reveal the values that motivate them to lead. Through guided reflection and practice, participants draft a full public narrative.
Community-Informed Project Design
Community-informed project design is a framework for getting clear on the need in your community, and making a strategic plan to make progress on that need with measureable goals and outcomes.
Keynote Speaker
Engaging, story-driven talks that inspire audiences to see their experiences as a source of leadership and action.
About Maria
Maria Dueñas Lopez is an experienced facilitator, trainer, and coach whose work in public narrative and community organizing began as a youth advocate. She went on to complete a fellowship and several years of work with Truth Initiative, and later worked full-time with The 84 Movement in Massachusetts. During this time, Maria testified before legislative committees, participated in news interviews, advocated on Capitol Hill, and organized alongside young people and communities laying the foundation for the work she leads today.
Maria holds a B.A. in Political Science from Indiana University Indianapolis and a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School. She has served as a Teaching Fellow for Professor Marshall Ganz at the Harvard Kennedy School and with Harvard Kennedy School’s Executive Education program, coaching leaders in leadership, storytelling, and action.
Over the years, Maria has trained, facilitated, and coached diverse cohorts of leaders through engagements with the Course on Exponential Fundraising, the Institute for Nonprofit Practice, the Boston Mayor’s Office, and a presidential campaign in Colombia, among others. Building on this experience, she is adapting the public narrative curriculum for middle and high school students to make these transformative leadership tools accessible to the next generation.
About MarLo & Co.
Organizations and movements often ask young people to share their stories and lead projects in support of a cause, but don't always have the internal capacity to help them do either effectively.
Young people may be asked to share personal experiences without enough support to determine what they want to share, why they want to share it, or how to connect their story to a larger purpose. And when they're invited to take action, that action can stop at awareness or service projects rather than helping young people understand how to build strategic campaigns capable of winning meaningful change.
MarLo builds the capacity of young people, and the adults who support them, to move from story to strategy to action. Using public narrative and community organizing frameworks, participants learn to identify the values rooted in their experiences, communicate those values through authentic and purposeful stories, and translate them into strategic campaigns with clear goals, targets, tactics, and pathways toward measurable change.