Topos Partnership has released its newly updated summary of communications principles and best practices! SAY IT SO THEY’LL HEAR IT illustrates narrative best practices with explanations and examples, all with the goal of helping progressive advocates make the most of their communications opportunities. Download the guide
From Scarcity to Abundance: A Think Big Narrative Learning Community Conversation Wednesday, August 16th I 4-5 pm EST, 1-2pm PST Save the date for our next Learning Community meeting on August 16th at 4pm EST! Together with Amanda Cooper, Senior Partner at Lightbox Collaborative, Laura Hughes, Director of Narrative Strategies at PolicyLink, and Elaine […]
This episode of Roosevelt Institute’s excellent podcast How to Save a Country features Heather McGhee, Author of The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together. On the podcast, Heather explores the impacts of the zero-sum racial hierarchy (the narrative that asserts that progress for people of color comes at […]
A new report from The FrameWorks Institute (courtesy of The Annie E Casey Foundation and the Prevention Institute) has recommendations on Framing Community Safety (including the public health approach to community safety and social determinants of health and safety). A helpful resource if you’re engaging in public conversation on issues of safety. Check it out Here.
The debt default stalemate is careening toward next week’s hard deadline. And while there has been solid coverage of the catastrophic consequences of the nation defaulting on its obligations, it’s worth highlighting the voices that are directly connecting the dots between communities’ wellbeing and the economy. For instance, Center for American Progress’ Jean Ross writes: […]
Check out Housing Narrative Lab’s updated Messaging Guide for Communicating about Homelessness. The guide highlights key findings from national narrative research identifying the current problematic narratives of “personal responsibility” and laying out promising messages that can shift perceptions.
#Taxday2023 was a day to celebrate hard fought victories for tax justice in Washington State. Last month, the Washington State Supreme Court upheld the state’s capital gains excise tax, passed in the legislature in 2021. An added plus – Washington’s Working Families Tax Credit was finally made available to all state tax filers this year. […]
Focused on telling success stories about this essential public system, uses voices of impacted people to reinforce the up-front systems language, talks about how it helps everyday people and families AND the broader ripple effects for communities and our economy. Check it out here.
Check out this example of Thinking Big out loud. This article and the work behind it starts with a vision, quickly gets to what solutions would get us there and connects the dots to how that would make things better for everyone. “An economy that works for those women,” Nyandoro said, is “an economy that […]
Recent Topos’ research confirms that a progressive take on “safety” is effective (and needed!). To counter efforts by conservatives to use anxieties about crime to put progressives on the defensive, a progressive take on “safety” acknowledges people’s concern, but puts the causes and solutions in terms of the well-being of regular people, including an aspirational […]
Progressive economic policies that focus on people’s wellbeing can hit a brick wall (or at least a sturdy parapet) constructed by the current cultural common sense – the pervasive, default perspectives that shape our thinking in deep, often unconscious ways – about the economy. The dominant model of the economy in this country (which successfully […]
Instead of the usual “the pay gap between x and y is z” this tweet leads with “x group loses y because of the gap.” And then it gets quickly to what that means to real people: rent, utilities, groceries and child care.
“Imagine a future in which American identity is untethered from white supremacy — neither white supremacist nor centered around resisting white supremacy.” The Bridge Project – a collaborative narrative research project – is working to craft a story that aligns with who want to be in three decades time and is strategizing by building backward […]
Robin Wall Kimmerer considers the ethics of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy in this Emergence Magazine essay. She provides food for thought on concepts of the economy, scarcity, and competition that lead to inequity and asks what it would look like to move to a model of abundance and reciprocity […]
In 2021, ORS Impact released a second iteration of their 2019 Measuring Narrative Change 1.0 report to dive more deeply into narrative change concepts and what these mean for measurement and evaluation. With practical insights and guiding questions for practitioners, funders, and others interested in measuring narrative change – the guide provides a common language […]
America needs a new story—one that is honest and inspiring, and that doesn’t shy away from its racial history—to guide us toward realizing a thriving multiracial democracy. Angela Glover Blackwell dives into the elements of this new story in the Spring 2023 issue of SSIR, highlighting a framework around race and racism that allows us […]
United for a Fair Economy has put out a new set of resources designed to help with everyday conversations about the economy and policy. There’s a conversation deck and a facilitator’s guide (in English and Spanish) – useful stuff for groups participating in or hosting local conversations about the economy with non-insiders. Access the digital […]
In collaboration with the State Revenue Alliance, We Make the Future shares digital toolkits, research findings, messaging implementation, and more on revenue and making the case for well-funded public systems. Our shared vision for overcoming and recovering from the pandemic centers interventions that make life better for families. Our partners desire to build a world […]
Chris Benner and Manuel Pastor invite us to imagine and examine solidarity economics – an approach grounded in our instincts for connection and community – and the ways it can help us build a more equitable, thriving economy. Click here for a free e-version of the book
Darrick Hamilton, Professor and and founding director of the Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy at The New School, shares a vision for a racially and economically just economy (and more) in this Rockefeller Q&A. So that question I keep getting is, asking “can we achieve it tomorrow?” The answer is, I don’t know […]
Check out this piece in Beacon – a website and podcast created by the Maine People’s Alliance – applying a framework of Solidarity Economics to thinking about why everyone has a stake in passing paid leave. Read more