About Us

Connection begins with curiosity. Stories help us understand one another. Understanding creates stronger leaders, healthier teams, and more connected communities.

Let's tell a story together

Hi, I’m Chris Williams, founder of Front Porch Sessions.

“You will rarely see me wearing a suit.”

I believe stories are one of the quickest ways we remember that we belong to each other. Whether I’m producing a live storytelling show, leading a workshop, or helping a team better understand itself, my work is rooted in the same idea: people connect more deeply when they have the space, structure, and invitation to be real with one another.

Through Front Porch Sessions LLC, I create storytelling, improv, facilitation, and belonging-centered workshops for organizations, teams, communities, and individuals.

My work helps people build trust, strengthen communication, listen with more care, navigate conflict more thoughtfully, and tell clearer, more meaningful stories about who they are and why their work matters.

I care about connections that feel genuine. Not awkward icebreakers for the sake of icebreakers. Not performative team-building. Not checking a box and calling it culture. I care about creating rooms where people feel seen, heard, challenged in the right ways, and maybe even surprised by how much they enjoy the process.

I bring a mix of warmth, humor, structure, and experience to every room I’m in. My background includes years of facilitation, storytelling, public education, community engagement, improv, event production, and equity-centered work. I also hold a master’s degree in conflict resolution, have supported college orientations, and have been part of events and learning spaces including TEDxPortland. I know how to hold a room, shape an experience, and help people move from conversation to connection.

I don’t just help people talk. I help people listen, connect, reflect, and leave the room more invested in each other. If you’re looking for a thoughtful, creative, and human-centered partner for your next workshop, event, orientation, or team experience, I’d love to work with you.

Coaching & Facilitation

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As seen in…

Press

Chris Williams convenes Front Porch Sessions for storytelling and dialogue (OPB)

Front Porch Sessions Is a Loneliness-Destroying Storytelling Show (Portland Mercury)

We help businesses, leaders, and communities tell their stories.

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Educator

I earned a Master’s Degree in Conflict Resolution from Portland State University in 2007 and have worked internationally and locally in the field of education for decades. You can catch me telling my own stories or playing on stage improvising with Kickstand Comedy.

Regardless of where I am or what I’m doing, I’m committed to engaging with the communities around me and living a full and purposeful life filled with laughter, creativity and surprises.

I have spent well over a decade on the front lines helping to educate youth in the public school system. What I quickly discovered was that they had just as much to teach me.

You can’t fake it with kids, they demand authenticity and they’re also very forgiving of mistakes.

Working with young people has been an invaluable lesson in how I want to live my life.

I’ve taken the skills gained from listening to and collaborating with youth and transferred that into the work and energy I put into Front Porch Sessions and my workshops.

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“The power of story has influenced my life from a very young age. I’ve spent my time incorporating storytelling into the work that I do.”

Story Coach

I can still remember the first time I told an “official story”. I say official because it was the first time I told a story in front of hundreds of people who had bought tickets to hear me and a handful of other people tell a personal story.

I didn’t want to walk on that stage.

I listened to the hosts talking to the audience and I could hear the laughter of the crowd and the pounding of my heart. I thought of all the different ways to get out of walking onto that stage. My mind was blank and I was certain I would not remember the story I had developed over the past few weeks.

I was deep into the negative self-talk when my story coach and now friend and mentor came over to me with a big smile on her face. She put her hands on my shoulders and simply said “you’re going to be amazing!”

I could feel my entire body relax and then she walked me onto the stage after introducing me. The story came back to me and it really was an amazing evening.

I want everyone that I work with to feel the way I felt that night.

I want everyone I have contact with to understand that not only do they have a story inside of them but they have an amazing story to tell.

I coach people on their story development the same way that I work on my own stories. I always start from a position of positivity and with the understanding that the story is already there, we just have to remove everything else around it.

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“Chris Williams of Front Porch Sessions worked with our nonprofit to tailor a successful and heartfelt storytelling event at the height of the pandemic, no small feat. He worked with our storytellers to elicit poignant stories and provocative questions while ensuring a lively virtual event. I still have community members tell me to this day how meaningful and nourishing the experience was! Thank you Front Porch Sessions!”

— Carolina Pfister, Executive Director of CultureSeed