Civil Society: It Works!
The “Civil Society: It Works” campaign from Poland shows people what civil society is. They maintain a flow of engaging human stories of real-life community work.
This campaign answers the question: What is the picture we want people to get in their minds when they think of “civil society”? If we only show the crisis, that is the only image people have available to them. No other idea/image will come to them unless we put it there.
For example, this video shows how civil society empowers and provides mobility to older people in the community:
Together Human
The Gemeinsam Menschlich (Together Human) campaign aimed to change the perception of Muslims in Germany. They started with thorough audience research to identify the kinds of stories that would change attitudes of a specific audience segment toward Muslims. Using those insights, they then helped Muslims in specific parts of the country to talk about their work, also bringing their colleagues into the story.
The campaign was developed and tested in the Narrative Lab at the International Centre for Policy Advocacy (ICPA) by JUMA, an NGO that gives young Muslims a voice. Read a longer case study about the campaign here.
Familias: Ahora
Familias: Ahora is a values-driven platform maintained by Puentes to produce progressive content around gender issues. It provides people with simple, engaging content so that they can have conversations with others about gender issues. Through simple content like stories and quizzes, they bring to life an alternative narrative to the “gender ideology” narratives being pushed against them.
Part of narrative change is making the things we want to happen more salient: we need to see more of them. People need to get used to them. So communications and campaigning is not just raising awareness, but raising visibility of our values in action.
The Race Class Narrative
The Race Class narrative is a messaging framework designed by communications experts in the United States, including Anat Shenker-Osorio. They created several state-level channels across the United States to spread the message. Crucially, they promoted an empowering “people decide” message around the 2020 elections, when the threat of a coup could have demotivated voters. These are textbook examples of how you can create new values-brands to get your narrative out there.
https://raceclassnarrativeaction.com/examples/
https://www.wemakethefuture.us/resources
Book of Radical Love
A campaign handbook for activists during the Istanbul mayoral election in 2019 provides an example of how to avoid reacting to polarizing and provocative politics, whatever your politics.
The team behind the handbook wanted their activists to ignore the opposition, but love the opposition’s supporters. It instructed activists to:
- Talk less and listen.
- Talk about local issues (garbage collection), not what worries you the activist (democracy).
- Reframe what the campaign is about: rich versus poor not secular versus religious.
- Smile (Remember: We mirror each other’s emotions, so seeing someone smile will make you feel happy too.)
Stories for Life
Stories for Life is an experimental project that aims to spread new stories about how the economy works into mainstream society through popular culture. They started by deconstructing harmful narratives and sharing alternative, new ways of talking about and visualizing the economy that cultural figures like artists, writers, designers, filmmakers and musicians can start to use in their work. Their video was even shown at the U.K.’s biggest music festival.
This project shows that we can neither settle for criticizing the existing system, nor even imagining a new one: We have to start actively bringing it to life through real stories and content.
Las 17 El Salvador
The objective of this campaign was to liberate at least 17 women who were imprisoned due to obstetric emergencies. This project showed how to strike a balance with messaging naming the issue, why it is a problem, what the opportunity looked like, and calls to action for the state to release the women. The messaging names the issue and offers hope to stakeholders and audiences that there can be a brighter, more just future for women and the country, and it starts with reuniting the imprisoned women with their families. The campaign avoids using technical language, like medical explanations, and shaming the current president.
To convey the messaging a Facebook page was created. Valuable alliances with key recognized stakeholders were generated, making videos and audiovisual content that helped generate a much greater impact, visibility and international pressure. Based on the strategy, many of the 17 were released.
Explore more tools
We use a messaging house to highlight some simple topline messages that we need to repeat over and over again so that they stick in people’s minds.
This is a simple exercise to start articulating your values message.
Rhetorical and policy attacks on civil society are an effort to shrink civic space by destroying public faith in organizations and public motivation for participation.
Here are some tips for how to work with partners to tell narrative-changing stories.
Use this worksheet to draw the picture you want people to see when they hear your message about “civil society.”
Communications strategy outline once you have a clear goal.
Map out the potential supporters who share your values. You want to mobilize and organize these people to spread your narrative for you.