Advancing a Well-Being Narrative

Developed by the Metropolitan Group and RAND, this narrative guide offers some early thinking on a Wellbeing Narrative in the U.S. – a narrative shift from “economic growth at all costs” to “well-being for all people.” The report reviews and examines the implications for well-being approaches gaining traction globally, and offers initial insights and recommendations […]

Harmony Labs: How to Reach New Climate Audiences

This excellent interactive guide from Harmony Labs (in partnership with Earth Alliance) focuses on making climate culturally relevant. But the creative techniques they use to think about reaching audiences are useful to any issue area. Entering the next frontier of climate communications requires knowing which audiences haven’t been reached, where they gather, what drives them, […]

Think Big Report: Belonging In and To America

How do we get to a future America for all of us and for everyone, a nation in which belonging is co-created and power is authentically shared? Over the last year, Topos Partnership has worked in collaboration with the Bridge Project to conduct original research – including in-depth ethnographic interviews – building on the diagnosis of our fractured American […]

Reparations Narrative Lab: Research and Tools

The Reparations Narrative Lab  – launched by Liberation Ventures – focuses on narrative and culture change to build public support for reparations. Take a look at the extensive research and tools created during the first iteration of the Narrative Lab — including narrative briefs, webinars, and framing worksheets.   Access the research and tools

FrameWorks: The Terrain of Spatial Justice

Racism is built into places. It shapes who can live where, how resources are distributed, who gets a say over what happens in places, and more. Places in the United States reflect, perpetuate, and amplify the racism that structures US society. Creating a racially just society requires creating a spatially just society—a society that advances […]

Think Big: Abundance in Narrative

We often define abundance as a contrast. Abundance is NOT scarcity, NOT austerity, NOT competition for resources. So, then, what IS abundance? What are some of the core elements behind the term and the idea in narrative? What do these elements look like in practice? What are some of the inherent tensions? What do we […]

FrameWorks: Framing Community Safety

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.

Housing Narrative Lab: Messaging Guide for Communicating About Homelessness

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.

Tax Justice Wins in Washington State: A Narrative Perspective

#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. […]

Topos: Acting On Our Values is Good Economics

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 […]

Bridge Project: Reframing the Prevailing American Narrative for 2052

“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 […]

Measuring Narrative Change: Understanding Progress and Navigating Complexity

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 […]

We Make the Future: Fund Our Future

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 […]

Climate Change in the American Mind: Beliefs & Attitudes

Findings from a nationally represented survey conducted in December 2022 by Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication illustrate American’s attitudes and beliefs on global warming. Findings include: Americans who think global warming is happening outnumber those who think it is not happening by a ratio […]

SSIR: Changing the Housing Narrative by Talking about Race and Values

A new discussion in the Stanford Social Innovation Review with Glenn Harris, Michael McAfee, and Dorian Warren focuses on narrative change lessons from the work of the Housing Justice Narrative Initiative. Access the Discussion

Community Change: Economic Narratives & Ideas Project

Community Change’s Economic Narratives & Ideas Project, together with Lake Research Partners, has released new findings from quantitative and qualitative research on economic messaging. To access the key takeaways and recommendations — see the findings presentation and briefing. Learn more

What do we mean when we say “Think Big”?

Think Big grew out of a big idea. Progressive advocates, organizers, and funders who came together to talk about communications strategies to challenge austerity thinking in the face of an economic shutdown, voiced the need for a space to collaborate and share high-level strategic thinking and practical applications to counter conservative narratives across geographies and […]

Broke: How the Nonprofit and Philanthropic Sectors are Talking about Poverty and How We Can Do Better

BROKE, a project between RadComms and the Center for Public Interest Communications,  reveals the harmful narratives keeping in place the outcomes of capitalism and offers new narratives grounded in liberation and respect as well as a vision for a world where everyone’s needs are met. Learn more about the project and check out the new […]

Winning Jobs Narrative Project: A Working People-Centered Narrative for Jobs, Work, and the Economy

Based on an expansive research agenda, the Winning Jobs Narrative team has developed a narrative architecture that progressive advocates and leaders can draw from to frame a broad range of issues.  Download the project materials including the research scan, narrative toolkit, and briefing presentation slide deck. Winning Jobs Narrative Project

Topos: Beyond Winning – Change the Culture

When is a “win” not a win? When it makes future wins harder. Sometimes progressive policy campaigns can feel like riding a roller coaster. We win a victory at the ballot box only to see it undermined by a state legislature. We successfully sign a major policy into law, and yet a key element was […]

Topos: Two Narrative Strategies for Engaging on Race

To promote policies that advance the wellbeing of Black and brown people – while centering race, not avoiding it – Topos’ research adds two approaches to the body of work on using communication as a tool of creating change. In short: A barrier to policy support for some white people is a cycle of race […]