If You’re Reading This — And You Don’t Have a Cultural Strategy — It Might Be Too Late
Are you a non-profit/philanthropic leader trying to improve peoples’ lives by effecting policy and economic change? If you don’t have a cultural strategy, you’re fighting with one arm tied behind your back.
SO you’re a leader at a non-profit or foundation who spends your days strategizing how to make progress on the biggest challenges facing our people and planet. You have resources in the hundreds of thousands or millions, but you’re probably up against challenges that are measured in billions. You “compete” with other organizations in your space for finite funding, attention, credit. You compete against other pressing issues and timely social impact efforts for“share of concern.” You compete against for-profit companies to recruit and retain great talent — offering less pay, without equity and no annual bonus. Maybe you’re steeped in vicarious trauma, which you absorb from the people you serve. There are no easy answers to any question you face. Shit is tiring.
You’re probably trying to change laws or get people who hold power to behave differently, but not necessarily. Maybe you’re promoting help-seeking, supporting youth in making healthier decisions or otherwise trying to get a large group of people to change their behavior for the better. Every day you have to make tough decisions about how to prioritize your scarce resources.
You study what works and compile an evidence base.
You stay close to and center the audiences you serve.
You put out white papers and pursue press attention for your worthy work.
Maybe you advocate for legislative change at the federal, state or local level.
But do you use the power of culture to make any of these things easier?
If not, why not?
I. We Only Have Three Big Levers to Effect Change at Scale: Politics, Economics & Culture
So there’s this guy called Marshall Ganz, you might have heard of him. You’ve definitely heard of the things he’s been involved with and helped lead/organize—1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, linked up with Cesar Chavez in ’65 to help unionize farm workers in California, lead organizer of the United Farm Workers for a decade and a half, helped design the organizing strategy for Obama ’08. This guy knows a thing or two about a thing or two. He’s widely considered the Godfather of modern movement theory. And he has one quote that, if you do this work for a living, it behooves you to print out and pin up in your workspace:
“Social movements emerge as a result of the efforts of purposeful actors to assert new public values, form new relationships rooted in those values, and mobilize the political, economic, and cultural power to translate these values into action.”
Now, I lead full day workshops unpacking this one sentence and digging deep into the underlying principles. But for our purposes, there are six words that really matter here:
“the political, economic, and cultural power”
The abstract is that there are three primary levers we can pull to fuel movements, translate values into collective action and achieve large-scale societal change:
1/ Politics
2/ Economics
3/ Culture
You might advocate for the election of public servants you believe will prioritize your issue. At a bare minimum, if given the chance, I’m sure you’d brief a group of powerful elected officials on your organization’s work, encouraging them to adopt the evidence-based principles you’ve identified.
Maybe you advocate for economic incentives or penalties that can help make things better.
But what’s your cultural strategy?
II. What is Culture?
“Culture” is a funny word — a bit like the word “the” — very common in our everyday lives, but hard to define. It’s also a homonym, which makes it doubly confusing. But we can’t talk about cultural strategy if we don’t have a shared definition of culture. Here’s my take.
In an exploration of the word “culture” in the New Yorker, upon it being named Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year, Joshua Rothman cites the work of Raymond Williams, an academic who wrote the seminal book Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society:
“The critic Raymond Williams…writes that ‘culture’ has three divergent meanings:
a) there’s culture as a process of individual enrichment, as when we
say that someone is ‘cultured’;b) culture as a group’s ‘particular way of life,’ as when we talk about French culture, company culture, or multiculturalism;
c) and culture as an activity, pursued by means of the museums, concerts, books, and movies that might be encouraged by a Ministry of Culture.
These three senses of culture are actually quite different, and, Williams writes, they compete with one another.”
That’s a fine starting point, but not a particularly useful one. What we’re really interested in here are definitions b and c, which we need to drill down on further.
The first time I grappled with untangling this word was when I was appointed the founding Director of Cultural Engagement at Everytown for Gun Safety, back in 2014, a couple months after it launched. I’d spent the prior decade at MTV doing this work, but I never had to stop and consider definitions or consider the underlying theory — we just did it, and over time developed a shared understanding of the kinds of things that worked vs. those that didn’t.
My initial charge at Everytown was to help get more celebrities to tweet about gun violence prevention, plus lead the organization’s nascent efforts on “culture stuff.” After developing a strong perspective on cultural strategy in that role, I’ve subsequently worked with dozens of non-profit and philanthropic leaders—across a range of issues including nuclear disarmament, workforce development, education reform, supporting healthcare first responders and many others — and there are two key definitions I’ve locked in on:
1/ THE WHAT OF CULTURE
Culture is how we think, what we hold dear and how we act. More precisely stated:
“The prevailing beliefs, values and behaviors of a particular group of people at a point in time.”
2/ THE HOW OF CULTURE
Culture happens whenever beliefs, values or behaviors are transmitted between people. And again, definitionally:
“A set of practices that contain or transmit ideas, values and habits between individuals and groups.”
These definitions are lifted almost verbatim (with some small, but purposeful tweaks) from a pioneering report that was first issued in the early 2010s, called Making Waves: A Guide to Cultural Strategy. An absolutely All Star group of cultural strategists came together to create this indispensable tool, which I have called upon many times over the years. I stand on all of their shoulders and my take here is just that — my take, not the authoritative or final word.
Ok, so let’s button this up.
What is culture?
Culture is the PREVAILING beliefs, values and behaviors of a group of people at a point in time. Those people could be Facebook employees, left-handed people, New Yorkers or the oft-cited “American people.” Prevailing is an important word here, because it acknowledges that there’s a push-and-pull between competing beliefs, values and behaviors. Point in time is another important piece, because it underscores that culture is not fixed — it is constantly ebbing and flowing; our prevailing beliefs, values and behaviors are always in flux.
How does culture happen?
Culture happens WHENEVER ideas, values and habits are TRANSMITTED between individuals and groups. For our purposes, transmission is the operative word here. And this is the definition I want you non-profit leaders to pay particular attention to.
You see, in my experience, when many leaders in the philanthropic space hear the term “cultural strategy,” they think “culture change strategy.” That is: how are our efforts changing the prevailing beliefs, values and behaviors of a group of people at a point in time? That’s a heavy lift, and could feel quite immobilizing, especially given all the challenges I cited in the opening graph. Other leaders get excited about the proposition of changing culture, and in fact a number of contemporary non-profits make that an explicit or core objective.
Well, I’m here to tell you that you don’t HAVE to have a culture change strategy (see definition 1 above), but if you don’t have any cultural strategy (definition 2), you’re significantly handicapping your efforts to achieve the audacious change you seek. Because back to the inestimable Mssr. Ganz, a much smarter man than I, we only have political, economic and cultural power to call upon.
III. How is Culture Transmitted?
If culture happens whenever ideas, values and habits are transmitted between individuals and groups, and we want to harness the power of culture to accelerate social impact, then we need to understand the primary ways this transmission happens. Again, building on foundational work in the Making Waves report from 2014, my firm WRIT LARGE has identified at least 12 primary cultural modalities. You can think of these as (at least) 12 major tools in the cultural strategy toolbox:
- Storytelling
- Art (including all mediums — tactile, digital, sonic, etc.)
- Games (including all organized, professional and amateur sports)
- Cultural symbols
- Cultural influencers
- Cultural moments
- Cultural disruptions
- Gatherings
- Rituals
- Fashion
- Faith
- Recreation and leisure
These aren’t in any particular order and they’re certainly not rank-ordered. None of them are inherently “good” or “bad” — they all can be used for progress or ill (depending on your perspective). It’s also important to note that these categories aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive, as great culture tends to jump boundaries and defy categorization.
The tie that binds is that these are the things in peoples’ lives that they run toward. These are the spaces where people live their lives. The podcasts and songs in their earbuds, the video games on their consoles, the shows on their screens, the spaces where they worship, the joyful moments when they convene. That’s why culture leads, and public sentiment (and legislative change) follows.
Nobody wakes up in the morning and says “What’s a new white paper I can start my day with??”
or
“What’s an issue I can call my Senator about this morning and ask her to support?”
People wake up and engage with culture. And they do it all day long, typically as much as they can get away with. And then they engage with culture as they drift off to sleep.
So again, if you aren’t harnessing the power of culture to advance social justice, or protect the planet, or further LGBTQ+ rights, or improve equitable hiring, or reduce the stigma around mental health help seeking, or, or, or, or…why not?
This isn’t the forum or format to provide an exhaustive accounting of the culture modalities above, but some examples would help make this all a bit more tangible, yeah? Here are some of my favorites, including a few I was very fortunate to be involved with.
STORYTELLING
Social impact storytelling can be earnest or comedic, fiction or non-fiction, episodic or singular, a hundred hour series or a five second TikTok video. We’ve been telling stories to each other since before we first gathered around a nighttime fire. Plus stories are the main way we make sense of the world around us. A few standout examples that linger with me include:
// 13TH // Powerfully and devastatingly connects the dots between hundreds of years of slavery, systemic oppression and domestic terrorism with the modern day prison industrial complex — in a transfixing 100 minute package.
// Modern Family // A mass audience broadcast TV show that helped normalize same sex marriage to an audience of millions for over a decade.
// The Lorax by Dr. Suess // This fable for the ages has sensitized generations of young people to the connection between (the Once-ler’s) myopic greed and the fragility of our natural surroundings (the Truffula trees, Bar-ba-loots with no food in their tummies, glumped Humming-Fish ponds).
// Inside Amy Schumer Tackles Gun Violence // A concept I was originally deeply nervous about, see how a brilliant comedienne uses farce to hold a mirror up to America’s warped reality — demonstrating how our current laws can be stranger than fiction. [WATCH]
ART
In the broadest possible sense. Still, moving, digital, tactile, sonic, visual. When done well, one of the most enduring of all cultural modalities.
// Guernica by Pablo Picasso // Completed in 1937 to capture the devastation of a Nazi bombing of a Basque town, this guttural scream of a painting has become a timeless call for peace.
// Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday // Adapted from a 1937 poem by Abel Meeropol and first performed by Holiday in 1939, you’d be hard pressed to find a piece of culture that has had a bigger — and more indelible — impact on a social movement. This gut wrenching record has even been called “the beginning of the civil rights movement.”
// Hope by Shepard Fairey // The first time I ever saw a considerable percentage of my social graph (MySpace?) all brandishing the same avatar. An icon of an icon that elegantly captured the hopes of millions after a long, dark period.
// Non-Violence, a.k.a. The Knotted Gun, by Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd // Originally designed as a call for peace in the wake of John Lennon’s murder, this bronze sculpture wound up becoming the welcome mat to United Nations headquarters in New York City. It boils the message down to its raw essence, in a way only great art can.
// Freedom From Want (reimagined) by Hank Willis Thomas and Emily Shur // Reinterpreting Norman Rockwell’s lily-white America through a modern, pluralistic lens, the “For Freedoms” project adeptly updates a set of “iconic American images” that conveniently omit most modern day Americans.
GAMES
This encompasses everything from using e-sports to get young people registered to vote to hosting a “righteous cornhole tournament” to refusing to take the court the night after ANOTHER Black man is shot in the back by police to refusing to take to the floor when weighed down by the expectations of a country.
// Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the Games of the XIX Olympiad // It’s hard to fully comprehend, in our post-Kaepernick, post-George Floyd world, what a bold, brave and principled act this was, in 1968, just six months after the assassination of MLK. But Smith and Carlos raising gloved, black fists on the Olympic podium — while the U.S. national anthem played and the whole world watched — stands as one of the most indelible expressions of Black pride we’ve ever seen in American popular media.
// Colin Kaepernick during the 2016 NFL season // Also hard to fully comprehend what a revolutionary act this was at the time, from an athlete, given everything that’s happen since. Colin’s post-game remarks, explaining why he didn’t stand for the national anthem, are still awe-inspiring five years on: “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”
// NBA and Spike Lee #EndGunViolence campaign // In many ways, this was the proudest moment of my career — and one of the best memories of my life — so far. I cherish the way the New York Times described it, as the lede story of the paper, almost eight months before Kaepernick first took a knee: “In a move with little precedent in professional sports, the N.B.A. is putting the weight of its multibillion-dollar brand and the prestige of its star athletes behind a series of television commercials calling for an end to gun violence.”
// Darfur is Dying, mtvU // From a concept proposed by a college student at USC, Darfur is Dying was one of the first viral “games for change,” demonstrating the potential of video games to mobilize real-world action on pressing societal issues. Before launch, we had journalists questioning if MTV was trying to trivialize or profit off a genocide; after launch, we had Nick Kristof of the Times calling it “one of the best representations of life in Darfur” that he’d seen in any media.
CULTURAL SYMBOLS
Cultural symbols are a visual shorthand that make it easier for us to identify as members of a tribe, publicly demonstrate our values and advocate on behalf of issues we care about. There are hundreds at this point, but some of my favorites include:
// LGBT Pride Rainbow Flag // Now here’s an amazing example of purposeful — and profoundly successful — cultural strategy in action. In the mid 70s, gay rights iconoclast Harvey Milk challenged artist Gilbert Baker to create a symbol of pride for the gay community. Drawn from a wide range of inspirations, but intentionally built to reflect the spectrum of human sexuality and gender, the first rainbow flags flew at San Francisco’s 1978 Gay Freedom Day Parade. Do you think anybody there that day ever thought the White House would one day be illuminated in the colors of the flag, to commemorate the Supreme Court making same-sex marriage the law of the land? The wide-scale adoption of the LGBT Pride Flag later inspired the creation of numerous Trans Pride Flags around the world, too.
// Red HIV/AIDS Ribbon // Inspired by the yellow ribbons Americans have long donned to show support for war veterans, the simple red ribbon was created by a small arts collective in NYC’s East Village back in 1991. The original intention was quite simple: come up with a symbol to raise awareness for the AIDS epidemic and show support for those living with HIV, who were often stigmatized and demonized. 30 years later — and underscored every December 1st, when global landmarks from the Empire State Building to Table Mountain light up red as part of the continued push to find a cure for AIDS — this is arguably the most impactful cultural symbol we’ve ever seen.
// Wear Orange // When I got to Everytown in 2014 — especially after years of helping to drape MTV in red, rainbow, blue and purple — I knew we needed a unifying symbol for the gun violence prevention movement to rally behind. With all credit and respect due, Erica Ford had been doing the hard, in-the-streets work of saving young peoples’ lives from gun violence across New York City for years, while promoting the color orange as a banner for peace. But when I heard about a group of teenagers on the Southside of Chicago who responded to the murder of their classmate by asking her friends to wear orange to honor her life — because hunters wear orange in the woods to protect themselves, and as a way to visually say “don’t shoot me” — I knew we needed to ask the whole country to wear orange. The rest, as they say, is history.
IV. Anticipating “Yeahbuts”
Ok, so at this point, I hope I’ve made a compelling enough case for why you should have a cultural strategy. And demystified what we mean when we say “culture.” And provided some compelling examples that make you, as a non-profit or philanthropic leader, say “I want that!” However, one thing I’ve become very accustomed to when working with non-profits the last 15 years are what I call the “Yeahbuts.” As in:
“Yeah, but, we can’t afford to do that…”
“Yeah, but, our issue isn’t like gun violence…”
“Yeah, but, we can’t change the culture with our limited resources…”
“Yeah, but, how am I going to possibly create something as enduring as ‘Guernica’ or ‘Strange Fruit’??”
Let me respond to these in reverse order.
“Yeah, but, how am I going to possibly create something as enduring as ‘Guernica’ or ‘Strange Fruit’??”
You don’t need to. This isn’t a competition to create the “best” or most enduring example of a cultural intervention for social change. This is a powerful tool at your disposal to help keep your organization and issue top of mind for your supporters, to drive fundraising, to drive engagement, to fight for scarce “share of concern,” so you have a strong piece of content you can screen for legislators on Capitol Hill or at a state capital, etc. Just be clear and strategic about why you’re harnessing the power of culture; the culture you create doesn’t have to become famous.
“Yeah, but, we can’t change the culture with our limited resources…”
As mentioned previously, you don’t have to set a goal of “changing the culture.” You might have an explicit mission of changing laws, or delivering direct service to those most in need, or promoting a new set of economic incentives or penalties. That said, you might be surprised by how what you create ripples far beyond what you expected. Given that our culture is a composite — the “prevailing beliefs, values and behaviors of a particular group of people at a point in time” — your measured experiment with an unexpected video, game, gathering, gesture or symbol could be a spark that far exceeds the intention you set.
“Yeah, but, our issue isn’t like gun violence…”
This is the most frequent “Yeahbut” I hear, whenever we examine past successful cultural strategies. But climate change isn’t like…but criminal justice reform isn’t like…but gender-based violence isn’t like…but nuclear disarmament isn’t like…but global poverty alleviation isn’t like…
Yes, I know. Every issue and every organization is a snowflake. And they ALL have their merits/strengths and challenges. And they can ALL benefit from harnessing the power of culture.
If you take a possibilitarian perspective and seek out ways to leverage facets of culture that will help accelerate your impact, you’ll find them.
If you have a “Yeahbut” mental model, it’s probably symptomatic of other ways you’re missing opportunities to further the incredibly difficult and noble work you’ve committed yourself to. And the people who will suffer most as a result of your Yeahbuts are you, your staff and the people you were founded to serve.
“Yeah, but, we can’t afford to do that…”
How can you afford not to?
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Jason Rzepka is a Berkeley, CA-based cultural strategist who founded and runs a boutique firm called WRIT LARGE. WRIT LARGE helps social impact leaders scale urgent causes by harnessing the power of culture, coalitions and communications. When he’s not doing that, he’s probably watching Chicago sports, running, listening to hip hop, Airstreaming or hanging out with his little girl Ella.
