Building narrative power helps to achieve three important things: building a future where frontline narratives are dominant narratives; shifting who owns and run the narrative ‘means of production’; and making community-led policy change and culture change durable. To design narrative research, begin by understanding the narrative landscape within which an issue or dynamic is operating and assessing the collective capacity to drive narrative change; then test narrative interventions, like mini-campaigns. Employ advisors on our research projects is helpful to understand the nuance and complexity of a policy agenda or a lived-experience. Choosing research participants who are typically engaged in the issue area being explored is helpful (for example, organizers with a local organization managing volunteers, a policy advocate for a specific community or issue area, a lawyer who utilizes the legal system to highlight solutions for the challenges workers and migrants face, an artist who uses their craft to raise up voices and awareness). Moreover, interviews are key to understanding what is needed to build and hold a shared understanding of the narrative landscape in which these communities exist.

The narratives swirling around us right now are potent, messy, and constantly shifting—and that’s exactly why we need to make sense of them, together. This resource analyzed the narratives leading up to the 2024 election, focusing on economic issues, immigration, voting rights, race and gender justice. The mood and tone in election conversations were agitational, authoritative, urgent, concerned, informative, hopeful and empowering. Core values included equity, accountability, compassion, justice, empowerment, autonomy, integrity, community, safety and security. It is clear movement strategists, organizers and allied formations must: pool resources, invest the time and capacity together, expand reach, and tell better stories.

Here is a roadmap based on the social change ecosystem framework for how individuals, collectives, and organizations can try to meet this moment, and prepare for what is ahead. Spend time with anger, grief, and disappointment. Lean into curiosity and reflection. Find local community ecosystems. Map our roles. Pace ourselves with quarterly check-ins.

Here are practices based in the science of motivation, performance and well-being to improve the quality of political organizing trainings. Connect the activity to its impact on other people or the world. Present goals and timelines as valuable information that is necessary for achieving a shared goal. Be clear about any requirements, guidelines, or boundaries. Provide a meaningful rationale for requests and requirements. Acknowledge and accept negative feelings and affect. Provide appropriate scaffolding (training, shadowing, role-plays, etc.).

Underdogs can use the same strategies as more powerful actors do against their powerful opponents. In this podcast episode, Deepak and Stephanie discuss some great examples of how to counter corporate power, use PSYOPS against white supremacists, and drive wedges in elite coalitions. They also explore other lessons progressives can take from the “overdogs’” (i.e., more powerful actors) playbook: crafting long-term plans, recruiting based on belonging rather than belief, and using data-driven evaluation paired with the lean startup model for organizing. And overdogs today invest in strategic education at a scale that dwarfs anything on the left. Their commitment is captured in the slogan of the right-wing Leadership Institute, which has trained over 200,000 people: “You owe it to your philosophy to learn how to win.”

Lynsy Smithson-Stanley and Jack Zhou join The Great Battlefield podcast to talk about their work on the Climate Advocacy Lab's latest report A Blueprint for Multiracial Cross-class Climate Movements.

Young people bring critical perspective, expertise, and energy to our movement spaces -- but traditional organizing and mobilizing structures can leave them feeling undervalued, tokenized, or burnt out. 

How do we design ladders of engagement that truly support youth leadership development within our climate organizing work?

Participants will leave this Lab training with:

• Evidence-insights into the challenges and opportunities of youth climate organizing

Inflation Reduction Act

Trust-building is actions aligned to values — it’s not just communicating about what matters, but doing it. Trust for institutions across society is declining. This growing trust deficit is a serious problem: It erodes a high-functioning pluralistic democracy, compromises public health and makes it impossible to solve collective problems like climate change. Trust doesn’t just happen. American civil society institutions have an important role to play in increasing trust — which is necessary to create the kind of world we all want to live in.

Relationships are the building blocks for all community organizing activities. Community building occurs one-to-one: you need to build relationships with people one-to-one if you want them to become involved in your group or organization. Often building relationships is the groundwork that must be laid before anything else gets done on a project. The bigger the project, the more relationships you will usually need as a foundation. When you plan a project, you need to include the time it takes to build relationships into your plan. People need time to build trust. Whenever people work together, they need to have trusting relationships. When trust is missing, people usually have a difficult time functioning cooperatively. Here’s an 11-step program to building trusting relationships: build relationships one at a time; be friendly and make a connection; ask people questions; ask people questions; go places and do things; accept people the way they are; assume other people want to form relationships, too; overcome your fear of rejection; be persistent; invite people to get involved; enjoy people.