Susan Rooney-Harding: Director, Videographer, Editor, Business Development, and Project Management.

Susan is a documentary filmmaker and a creative qualitative data specialist. Her inquisitive and intuitive nature is central to her ability to capture meaningful stories for a greater purpose. Susan is the founder of The Story Catchers - Stories for Purpose.

Together with Nerissa Walton we co-created a methodology that uses film and community participatory approaches in monitoring, evaluation, and social impact measurement.
Film presents evidence in a way that a written story cannot do. Our methodology supports communities to tell and share their stories. This helps to eliminate situations where project staff tell their versions on behalf of communities. Numbers aren’t enough to fully understand community conditions of well-being, or quantitatively assess certain aspects of wellbeing. For example, in measuring human emotion and perception; we need the stories to do this!

Our methodology enhances the individual and collective voice, including the silent and the unheard voices that are often sidelined. The methodology empowers communities to actively co-create and evaluate their own projects and programs. We have been using our methodology for close to a decade and we have refined our processes. We know it is an effective tool in the evaluation and reporting process.
Using our methodology for evaluation and impact measurement can help create positive systemic, sustainable change in the organisation and communities that we work with.

Local, National and International organisations have used The Story Catchers services, organisations such as Indigenous Lands and Sea Corporation, Department of Planning Transport and Infrastructure, Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources, Enel Green Power, Rural and Remote Mental Health and South Australian Murray Darling Basin Natural Resource Management Board to name a few.

Content that Susan has created with communities has been seen on News 24, Landline, ABC Online, ABC Open, ABC Rural and the 730 Report.
Her work has been featured in exhibitions in the Sydney Museum, Adelaide Festival Centre, Northern Rivers National Portrait Prize at the Lismore Regional Gallery and Murray Bridge Regional Art Gallery, South Australian Living Artists (SALA).

Talk to me about
Storytelling
Story Catching
Story Weaving
Documentary Film
Social Impact Measurement
Video Reporting
Co-creation
Working with First Nations People