The Youth Empowerment Broadcasting Organization (YEBO) is a nonprofit media company with a mission to amplify the voices of BIPOC-identifying youth through podcasting and live storytelling events. Our vision is to create positive change in individuals and communities through the art of storytelling. 

We accomplish our mission by hiring and developing local BIPOC-identifying youth (ages 18-24 y/o) as storytelling coaches and professional media producers. Through coaching, encouragement, and practice, our staff supports storytellers (youth high school-aged through postsecondary) with crafting their own tales, and then they record and tell their stories to a live audience at our Release Parties or smaller pop-up style events. After the event, YEBO’s producers edit, brand, and publish stories on our podcasting network. Stories are released in themed collections, called Mixtapes.

YEBO’s values reflect our belief in the transformative power of storytelling, which drives our organization’s culture and activities:

• Authenticity is unmitigated self-expression. Our stories celebrate and share our unique voices, experiences and perspectives.
• Self-Determination is living our possibilities in the world. Our stories inspire us to take ownership over our own narratives and shape our lives.
• Community is nourishment through relationships. Our stories build strong, healthy connections between people to create respect and collaboration.

Mission 1477

YEBO’s current statewide storytelling initiative is called Mission 1477.

Mission 1477 grew out of the year (2016) our CEO and founder, Cory Montalvo, served as a dean of students at a school in Five Points, Denver. That year alone, teachers sent students to Cory’s office to be disciplined a total of 1,477 times.

Mission 1477 represents the number of stories YEBO aims to publish to center and celebrate the voices and experiences of BIPOC-identifying youth across the state of Colorado. Each story exists as an opportunity to transform the 1,477 instances youth were silenced during Cory’s tenure as a dean into moments of self-expression and joy.