Language matters. Many culture change strategists today are looking at narrative and finding ways to effect real shifts in society by working on the level of story and metaphor.
“We have to use narrative as a tool to both create stickiness for the ideas we have that we think are necessary in order for our solutions to make sense to people in the world, but we also have to use narrative to unstick and scrape off all of these different labels that have been put on our issues and the people we care about and the people we are and the people we fight for.”
Chances are that your nonprofit knows the impact of stories. You may already be employing narrative strategies in your communications to good effect.
In my work with education organizations, I prioritize taking a deep look at the messages you’re sending—both intentionally and unintentionally. Maybe your messages basically function in getting the point across, but they could do more to inspire and catalyze. Or, in some cases, maybe your messages are actually working against you.
I can help you think with more discernment about the stories and images you’re invoking, so you can reach the people you want to reach, and both move and motivate them.
Here’s one example of a common messaging pitfall: social change strategist Lynn Davey points out that many organizations use the language of product marketing to try to motivate changes in social policy. These strategies are based on a typical American narrative that valorizes personal responsibility. They don’t work for social issues! Why? Because they activate in listeners/readers the idea that individuals are responsible for their own lives and the betterment of their circumstances.
Another instance, this one from my own work: I developed a prospectus for a rural educational initiative whose mission is to create learning environments that support children challenged by adversity, stress, and trauma in high poverty, geographically isolated areas. Their approach is genuinely whole-child, place-based, and collaborative.
The opioid crisis has a strong grip on the region. We knew that one of the obstacles we faced was that in the minds of some people, substance use is a personal failing, which means individuals and not systems are at fault for the fact that children are experiencing trauma that affects learning readiness.
In writing the prospectus, I very intentionally began with an appeal to values like interdependence, fairness, and equitable opportunity—values that people across the political spectrum tend to share. And I stated the program’s core beliefs at the outset so there could be no doubt that the challenge we were addressing is a systemic problem: “Chronic adversity, stress, and trauma are not just individual mental health issues for which families are solely responsible. These are also systemic conditions disproportionately affecting certain populations and geographic areas.”
Getting narratives to stick is long haul work. It depends on more than words. And every word counts.