Stento

Membership and support

The paying half keeps the free half open

Stento charges for lab work, commissions and the field school. It does not charge for kit loans, community advice, the listening room, or access to open recordings — and it never will. Membership and donations are what make that arithmetic work.

Listener

Researchers, family historians,
the generally curious$45per year, CAD
  • Catalogue account with saved searches
  • Listening room bookings, including restricted material
  • Quarterly bulletin and new-collection notices
  • Reel & Record delivered as PDF
  • 10% off print publications and symposium
Join

Practitioner

Anyone who records interviews:
societies, teachers, journalists$130per year, CAD
  • Everything in Listener
  • Priority on kit loans and cancellations
  • Free monthly method clinics, including recordings
  • 20% off the field school
  • Release-form and metadata templates, editable
  • Listed in the public Practitioner Directory
Join as Practitioner

Institution

Museums, municipalities, unions,
universities, band offices$650per year, CAD
  • Everything in Practitioner, for eight named staff
  • Two hours of advisory time a year
  • Consortium rates in the Preservation Lab
  • Two symposium seats
  • One deposit consultation for a collection you hold
Join

Sustaining Circle

Donors underwriting the
parts that must stay free$1,500+per year, CAD, receipted
  • Everything in Institution
  • Funds free kit loans and community advice
  • Named in the annual report, or not, as you prefer
  • Annual lab visit and a listen to something unreleased
  • Charitable receipt issued for the full amount
Join

Memberships run twelve months from the date you join, not from April. Concessionary Listener membership is $20 for students, and free for anyone currently borrowing a kit. If a fee is the only thing standing between you and the collections, write to us; we have never turned that request down.

Open books

Where the money actually comes from

We publish this because we ask other people to be transparent about their collections, and it would be strange not to be transparent about ourselves. Full audited statements are filed with the Canada Revenue Agency each year and posted in the annual report.

No single grant is worth more than nine per cent of income, which is deliberate. It means a change of government or a foundation's change of priorities cannot close the lab.

Governance and funders
Where operating income came from in the year ending 31 March 2026: preservation lab services 34 per cent, commissioned collections 26 per cent, grants 21 per cent, memberships and donations 12 per cent, training and events 7 per cent 34%26%21% 12% 7% OPERATING INCOME, YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2026 · $1.42M CAD
  • Preservation Lab services34%
  • Commissioned collections26%
  • Grants: provincial, federal, foundation21%
  • Memberships and donations12%
  • Training, events and publications7%

What $12 a month buys

Membership money, spent

$45

One cassette

A Listener membership covers the full charity-rate transfer of one cassette from a community collection.

$130

One kit, out and back

Insured shipping, servicing, card replacement and consumables for one three-week loan anywhere in the region.

$650

Nine hours described

An archivist listening through and writing item-level description — the step that turns a file into something findable.

$1,500

One free seat, twice

Two field school places held for community groups that cannot pay, including kit, meals and their finished interview.

Members

Why people keep renewing

“We had ninety cassettes in a filing cabinet and a committee that argued about them for a decade. Stento gave us a plan in three weeks and a catalogue in eight months.”
Institution member since 2019
Heritage society, Colchester County, NS
“The clinics are the reason I stopped being frightened of the consent form. I now record two interviews a month and every one of them is depositable.”
Practitioner member since 2022
Retired teacher, Charlottetown, PE
“Our local's history was three retired men and a shoebox. It is now a collection with a number, and the men have heard it played back to a room.”
Institution member since 2016
Labour organization, Saint John, NB

Other ways to give

Donations, bequests and equipment

One-off donations of any amount are receipted and go to the general fund unless you direct them to a named collection. Monthly giving from $10 is the steadiest support we receive and the cheapest for us to administer.

We accept bequests of both money and material, and we would much rather talk to you now than receive a surprise box later. We also accept serviceable working equipment: reel machines, decks, calibrated test tapes and spare parts, particularly for machines no longer manufactured.

Talk to us about giving

Before you give

Charity number
84732 6104 RR0001
Receipts
Issued for all gifts of $20 or more, within ten working days.
Restricted gifts
You can direct a gift to a named collection, to kit lending, or to free field school seats.
What we decline
Gifts with conditions on what a collection may say, or that require us to close material a narrator wanted open.
Annual report
Published each July with audited statements and full holdings figures.