Narrative change is an essential component to durable social progress: So where’s the money?
Ex-philanthropy staffer with some opinions.*
For Americans who care about an equitable, just, and healthy multi-racial democracy, there has been a lot of bad news lately. To avoid a pit of despair, I’ve been looking to the systemic roots of our problems and what it might take to make real change. I’ve been asking myself: What are the values, moral frameworks, and narratives that have gotten us to this sunken place? How have those narratives proliferated? And what values, moral frameworks, and narratives can carry us to a brighter, fairer and safer future?
A desire to get closer to the roots of societal problems is why after eight years in philanthropy, I left to explore my burgeoning interest in narrative and culture change during a season of global crises.
I’ve talked to dozens of leading narrative practitioners and culture change makers and read the work of many more. This education in narrative and culture change work only solidified the hunch I had while tucked away in philanthropy: narrative change is the essential, not-so-secret ingredient to making durable social change. It’s about changing the stories that shape beliefs. The U.S. has seen many powerful examples, including positively shifting discourses about LGBTQ rights, increased accountability for police violence and support for unions.
But this work is not sufficiently funded and is beleaguered by many of the issues felt across the wider philanthropic sector, namely a lack of long term general support. Because of this, it is all the more important that funders recognize that in order to see durable change, they must invest radically — meaning huge sums of money, untethered from burdensome proposals and reporting, for decades at a time — into narrative-based work.
How does narrative change work?
One of the foremost organizations building narrative infrastructure, The Narrative Initiative, describes narrative as the collective meaning we assign to the way the world works. And narrative power, as described by a recent report from the Convergence Partnership, is “the ability to shape public discourse, debate, and imagery.” Narrative change builds narrative power.
Narrative and culture change is about creating the conditions that make changing hearts and minds possible. This is what ensures that progress — whether in the form of changing policies or shifting cultural mores — lasts.
As an example, the narrative that self-reliance and individualism brings prosperity and material success is the bedrock of American culture and its economy (though it dictates the culture of many other Western societies as well). This myth suggests that all Americans start with an equal chance to succeed and overcome (usually economic) obstacles through individual perseverance and determination.
Activists and thinkers, such as those behind the BROKE project, are increasingly challenging this notion, demonstrating the damage these notions cause to people and the planet. To shift beliefs, they are sharing stories that show how prosperity is spread more evenly using cooperation and interdependence. As another example, The Pop Culture Collaborative supported a series of multimedia, pop culture projects telling fresh stories that bring to life what a more just and pluralist America could look like.
But this work takes time because foundational cultural narratives don’t change quickly. While we may gradually tell different stories about a particular issue, if we haven’t addressed the narratives that buttress those stories, we will continue to move one step forward, two steps back. Because the narrative of American self-reliance, often summarized as the “bootstraps” narrative, still pervades so widely, efforts to address poverty and scandalous inequality are relentlessly bogged down in blaming poor people for their situation and celebrating the wealthy as ideal Americans.
The moment is ripe for change
Whether funders and movements want to make progress on a discrete issue, such as raising the minimum wage, or on a broader field, such as closing the racial wealth gap, narrative and culture change must accompany any advocacy strategy. Without challenging the epistemology of narratives about poverty, deservingness, fairness or racism, most incremental advances on these issues won’t stick.
If given the funds and the flexibility, movements, organizations and communities can invest in casting a vision of a future so irresistible that the majority of our neighbors are compelled to join us.
Nonprofits and movements can’t do the gradual, time-consuming work to change hearts and minds at a deeper level when they are too busy playing crisis whack-a-mole, not to mention pouring human and financial resources into fundraising. Funders need to see narrative and culture change as an inherent part of social change, rather than as a tack-on tactic. Said best by Erin Potts, Dom Lowell and Liz Manne in their report on the narrative and cultural strategies ecosystem, the field needs: “MORE ABUNDANT, MORE EFFICIENT, MORE STRATEGIC FUNDING!” [Emphasis in original.]
This resistance to fund in brave, trusting ways is felt across much of progressive philanthropy, but narrative and culture change is one of the ripest areas for funder reform. It cuts across issues, geographies and demographics and has the transformational power to make long term impact.
Why we can’t wait
In his research on the history of conservative philanthropy in the 20th century, William Schambra describes how such philanthropy achieved its goals by reshaping the knowledge production sector, long dominated by the left: “It was not something to be accomplished by three-year, project-specific grants, but rather would require decades of broad and open-ended support for… the patient reconstruction of political philosophy…” Talk about a narrative change strategy!
The American right built institutions to shape knowledge and political discourse and legitimize their ideas. Sure, the left has many parallel institutions, but the right has been funded in a longer term, open-ended, and more trusting manner. And as the Convergence Partnership summed up, it is investment in “mass media, mass culture, and mass movements” that reflect the scale necessary to change narratives and culture. The risks of maintaining the status quo in funding far outweigh the risks of significantly investing for the long haul.
If given the funds and the flexibility, movements, organizations and communities can invest in casting a vision of a future so irresistible that the majority of our neighbors are compelled to join us.
To be fair, narrative and culture change is a relatively young field and funders on the left are slowly clarifying their strategies on this approach. Many foundations and philanthropic institutions are moving towards trust-based giving and participatory grant-making. This is an active conversation across much of the sector, but the radical release of resources is still not the norm.
There is a real gloominess hovering over those of us who believe in equal rights, bodily autonomy, protecting nature, and an inclusive, multiracial economy and democracy. The left can and must shape the conversations we want to have, on our terms, and create a compelling vision of a better future. Massive, flexible, long-term support from donors is the cornerstone to building such a structure.
Only then do we stand a chance of pulling ourselves back from the brink and building towards a future where everyone can thrive.
*BTW all opinions are personal and not reflective of my former or current employer.
