Frank Warren
Active Minds Speaker
Frank Warren is the founder of PostSecret and a speaker for Active Minds.
Contact us to arrange for Frank to speak at your location!
About Frank
Frank Warren, “The Most Trusted Stranger in America” and founder of PostSecret.com, travels around the country, sharing a collection of highly personal secrets on artfully decorated postcards mailed anonymously from around the world.
From deep family secrets to funny reflections, Warren has seen it all. He discusses how he started the project, his own secrets, why the blog has changed lives and brought people together, and why he has made suicide awareness part of his life’s work.
Audiences will also get to see postcards that were banned from the books and have the opportunity to share their own secrets live during the interactive program.
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Frank Warren started PostSecret as a community art project, inviting total strangers to anonymously mail in their secrets on homemade postcards. This simple act sparked a global phenomenon.
To date, Frank has received over 1 million secrets in his mailbox with more arriving every day but Sunday. PostSecret.com has had over 700,000,000 visits and has won seven Webby Awards. The postcards have been curated for six New York Times bestselling books and have been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art and the American Visionary Art Museum.
From August 2015 through December 2017, Frank’s PostSecret: The Power of a Postcard was on display at the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum in Washington, DC, and is now on display at the Museum of Us in San Diego, CA. The exhibition highlighted the aesthetics of postcards and the juxtaposition between anonymity and shared experiences. Frank and PostSecret have also been featured on CBS Sunday Morning.
Frank has traveled the world sharing secrets and stories from Australia to Winnipeg. There is a PostSecret album, a PostSecret TED Talk, and a PostSecret Play that received stunning reviews from Olympia, WA to West Palm Beach, FL and everywhere in between.
In 2011, Frank was awarded the ‘HopeLine Lifetime Achievement Award’ for his work on suicide prevention and was invited to the White House to work on issues of mental wellness.
View Frank’s website and check out the PostSecret blog.
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Half a million secrets
Booking information
Key topics
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Men and Mental Health
- Stigma Reduction
- Suicide Prevention
- Trauma
Frank's Presentation Options
Frank is the sole founder of the PostSecret Project, a growing collection of over a million artful secrets, mailed anonymously to him on postcards. Known as ‘the most trusted stranger in America’, Frank’s all new interactive online presentation reveals our true feelings about how the pandemic has disrupted our lives, while providing evidence-based tools to aid young people as they navigate through this challenging, but temporary crisis.
Community building, reducing stigma, and asking for help are all discussed in response to the rise in anxiety, loneliness, depression and grief.
67% of young people talk with a friend about mental illness before a parent, teacher or professional. One objective of this presentation is to give students the confidence and knowledge to know how to respond when a friend trusts them first with their secret.
In addition to sharing the most extraordinary secrets and inspiring PostSecret stories, participants will also learn from new pandemic related postcards that Frank has received from young people and the feelings and experiences they have been confiding on PostSecret social media.
Frank’s online program is 30 minutes with a 30 minute interactive Q&A. All attendees will receive a follow-up packet that includes discussion questions, mental health best practices, and resources
Frank Warren discusses how he started the PostSecret.com project, his own secrets, why the blog has changed lives and brought people together, and why he has made suicide awareness part of his life’s work. Audiences will also get to see postcards that were banned from the books and have the opportunity to share their own secrets live during the interactive program.
Frank offers virtual versions of his presentations and workshops.
Enhance your event with Frank Warren, by holding your own PostSecretU art project. Plan your PostSecretU in advance of Frank’s appearance to generate interest in secret-sharing on your campus or in your community, or invite him to help you celebrate the conclusion of your PostSecretU project with an interactive presentation. Your PostSecretU display will create lively and passionate discussion on topics ranging from mental health and wellness to family dynamics to religion and everything in between.
Travel information
Frank travels from California
View Testimonials
“I want to share this with you: our intern, a high school senior, just came to me today to confide in me that he has an opioid addiction which shocked me — and broke my heart. He said that being at the PostSecret presentation and reception really woke him up and made him aware that he was in trouble. He is now getting help and we’re all hoping that he can heal from this ordeal. But I wanted you to know the impact that it had on him. I’m sure it touched many, many others as well. People were coming up to me saying, “This was the best event we’ve ever had here!”
– Carol Nix, Director, NC State
“On behalf of the Texas Council of Community Centers, thank you for your inspiring keynote at our 34th Annual Conference. What a poignant and significant way to start our conference. Your powerful message resonated with our crowd, most of whom are involved in mental health service delivery in Texas. Thank you for reminding us to take a moment to reflect on the power of a secret to find ways to connect more deeply with each other. Regardless of where we are in life, your words call on us to have the courage to both speak out when we need to and to be more attuned listeners when it comes to our professional and personal relationships. Thank you again for your message and for sharing your personal story with us.”
– Danette Castle, CEO of Texas Council Community Centers, 2019
Active Minds Blog – Frank Warren
Frank Warren and The PostSecret Project brought great energy [and gave] students a chance to check out new secrets and really think about what secrets mean to us all.
Video preview
Books
PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives
PostSecret: Confessions on Life, Death, and God
The PostSecretU kit, available exclusively from Active Minds, has everything you need to hold a successful event, and was developed with the guidance, support, and full endorsement of Frank Warren, creator of PostSecret.
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