If you are making anything to put out in the world, that is meant to change the story towards justice and liberation, then story-based strategy might be for you.
A budget worksheet or a fundraising campaign. A whole book or just a flyer. Maybe an event or even a whole organization. Maybe it’s a hashtag, or an entire movement. There is a story that arises from what you do, and how you talk about it. Story-based strategy is an approach to understanding the stories you are trying to change, and being intentional and strategic about what stories your words and actions tell.
Organizers
You are the glue that holds our movements together. Your questions, provocations, and leadership help individuals find hope in collective action. Maybe you’re looking to move your organizing practice from resistance to building the new. Or maybe you’ve had one-too-many conversations where you weren’t able to scale the walls of fear and hopelessness cultivated by the status quo. Story-based strategy is a way to understand what we say and what we do as two parts of a whole, an approach to powerbuilding rooted in the power of story.
Communicators, Designers & Creatives
You write messaging or create visuals all the live-long day. You know the best practices of your discipline, but you crave ways to be more strategic and intentional in communicating with your audiences. In the urgency of the moment, you fall back on “stop the bad” messaging more than you’d like. You yearn to activate and inspire, but your creative work sometimes keeps you at a computer, at a distance from the people and expertise on the issues you are working on. Story-based strategy provides a set of tools that cultivate radical imagination and democratic collaboration, supporting your capacity to lead and inspire with your creative work.
Educators & Trainers
Your students and learners are looking to you to better understand the world, and how to change it. But between what passes for the status quo “common sense” and our 24-hour news cycle information overload, sharing all the facts still feels like a losing battle when the truth is increasingly contested. Story-based strategy gives you and your learners the tools to ground yourselves against the maelstrom, understand how the power of narrative operates in our lives and communities, and how to intervene to make the impossible, possible.