Fire and ICE: A Close Look at the Narratives that Emerge When Immigration Enforcement and Disaster Relief Collide
ICE’s detention of firefighters responding to the Bear Gulch Fire – the largest wild fire recorded in the Olympic Peninsula – ignites a powerful conversation on immigration enforcement and its cost to all of us.
“Flooding the zone”: On Narrative Power during Climate Catastrophes
A close look at the harmful and helpful narratives that emerged during the Texas Floods of July 2025–and what they can tell us about the narrative power needed for a true, pluralistic democracy.
Meeting Crisis with Community
When COVID-19 vaccines first became available, Southern California Pacific Islander Community Response team (SoCal PICRT) launched a campaign that filled critical gaps left by mainstream public health messaging. Rather than relying on press releases or canned messaging, they grounded their approach in cultural care, community trust and self-determination. Their strategy combined one-on-one conversations with targeted social […]
How A Winter Storm in Texas Catalyzed A New Strategy Hub for Disaster Relief and Organizing
The first time I met Ginny Goldman on a zoom call, I wasn’t surprised to hear the origin story of Organizing Resilience involved a major storm. We are both Houstonians, and it’s part of the local culture to mark the passage of time by hurricanes formed in the Gulf Coast. The storm that would eventually […]
Rural Pre-conference at 22nd Century Initiative in Minneapolis
In organizing, many progressives fall into traps that cast rural Americans as antagonists to progress writ large. This erases both rural people who are working towards racial, gender, economic, and migrant justice and the particular concerns, realities, and assets of rural communities. At our best, our many movements have shown that we can coalesce around […]
Innovations in Disaster Response After the Almeda Fire
Wildfires across the West Coast have become more severe in the ongoing climate crisis. Half of California’s 20 deadliest wildfires ever recorded occurred in the last two decades and among these, five of the six largest wildfires occurred throughout the 2020 wildfire season alone. I was in Oakland at the time, living under prolonged exposure […]
What We Learned in Minnesota
Read the Full Report: Building Narrative Infrastructure in Minnesota, August 2019 Narrative Initiative was founded in 2016 to build a network of narrative change practitioners that could advance equity and justice. Our charge is to connect people from diverse disciplinary backgrounds and communities, working on different social issues and in different cultural contexts—all of whom […]
Pitch Perfect: How to place your op-ed and get it published
To harness narrative power to activate change you must have an argument to make and an audience to whom you can make it. Once you have identified those elements the next step is to figure out where you want to place your story for publication. The idea here is to choose an outlet with the […]
The Argument: How an op-ed can shift the narrative
An op-ed case study showing the why, when and how of turning a story into an argument that successfully advocates for change. “Get down on your knees and place your hands on your head,” blared the police car loudspeaker. The command to Zach Norris and his family came after Walnut Creek police stopped the Norris […]
Feminist Political Organizing Offers Lessons in Narrative Power
Feminist narratives are powering some of the most important movements of the 21st century by turning anger to joy, creating care in spaces of insecurity, and looking to the future. The rapist is you It’s the cops The judges The state The president… The state that is ignoring our voices, is the state that is […]
Reclaiming Native Truth: Narrative research and making Native Americans visible
Reclaiming Native Truth is an extensive community-led narrative research project. It provides IllumiNative and others in the Native American community with data and insights showing the extent of Native American erasure from the national conversation. We spoke to Leah Salgado, Deputy Director of IllumiNative, to learn how Reclaiming Native Truth shapes narrative change strategy and […]
Building a Narrative Justice League: Learning from a nimble and powerful narrative coalition
Narrative change practice cuts across issues and coalitions. In January, we joined a roundtable of communicators and organizers to learn about the practices, skills and training that make narrative change in coalition not just possible but powerful. Narrative change work happens in coalitions that use shared principles, time and trust to move forward together. In […]