Organizing: A love story
Beth Howard is the Appalachia Organizing Director for Showing Up for Racial Justice where she is directing transformational basebuilding...
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Oct 20, 202210 min read
Mapping the Beaches of Black America
The Changemaker Authors Cohort, a partnership with the Unicorn Authors Club, is a new, yearlong intensive coaching program supporting...
Oct 10, 202213 min read
Wielding Grief to Enact Change
Malkia Devich Cyril, is a writer, public speaker and award winning activist on issues of digital rights, narrative power, Black...
Sep 23, 202210 min read
More Than Words: Trevor Smith connects anti-Black stereotypes to lethal violence
The Changemaker Authors Cohort, a partnership with the Unicorn Authors Club, is a new, yearlong intensive coaching program supporting...
Sep 15, 20229 min read
Worlds of Possibility
The Changemaker Authors Cohort, a partnership with the Unicorn Authors Club, is a new, yearlong intensive coaching program supporting...
Aug 15, 202216 min read
I Just Want to Be Seen: Roula AbiSamra excavates the trauma of her losses as a brown child of the Middle East in the American South
Lebanese-American reproductive justice advocate, Roula AbiSamra is working on a graphic memoir about the traumatic losses she experienced...
Jul 27, 20222 min read
Messaging vs. Narrative
What is the difference between narrative and messaging and how does that impact the way you plan and write your op-ed? One of the main...
Jul 21, 20223 min read
Navigating 2022: Ideas, reports, and resources for narrative changemakers
If you’re navigating narrative change you know that everything is, well <waves hands>, messy in the world. Every day is noisy and...
Jun 30, 202210 min read
Aishah Shahidah Simmons writes herself whole in memoir on sexual violence and healing
Narrative Initiative is committed to supporting storytellers whose work challenges harmful narratives on complex topics, such as...
Jun 28, 20223 min read
Gender is a story we tell ourselves
The first time I read Yoon Ha Lee’s Ninefox Gambit, I was captivated by the worldbuilding and the story’s overarching military conflict....
Jun 21, 20224 min read
Moving Beyond “Making The Case”: How We Build Narrative Power For Reparations
(This is part 1 of a 2 part series between Liberation Ventures and Narrative Initiative on narrative change and reparations.) “The world...
May 31, 20226 min read
Building relationships: How to capitalize on the momentum of your op-ed
You have your argument, you’ve identified your audience, and you’ve pitched your op-ed with successful results. Now what? How do you keep...
May 25, 20227 min read
Recognition and invisibility: A conversation with Panthea Lee about AAPI narratives
May is AAPI Heritage Month and we are speaking with women who live, see and share the narrative power of Asian Americans. Last week we...
May 18, 20228 min read
The voices missing from the abortion debate
The imminent repeal of Roe v. Wade has brought public narratives of motherhood and reproductive justice to the forefront. Each side has...
May 5, 20224 min read
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...
Apr 21, 20225 min read
Who are you talking to? The audience of an op-ed
The communications used for any narrative change project must have an audience. You need an audience who is open to change and willing to...
Apr 14, 20224 min read
We all have narrative power
Some of the most interesting and revelatory conversations I’ve had about politics and life have been in the back of a cab. This is a...
Mar 18, 20223 min read
What listening to Rusty Mae Moore taught me about narrative change
From 2015-2018, I was an interviewer with the New York Trans Oral History Project (NYTOP). A friend had convinced me to join because I...
Feb 7, 20225 min read
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...
Jan 13, 20222 min read
Five films we’re watching at Sundance Film Festival
The iconic Sundance Film Festival is coming up next week, from January 20th to the 30th, in a virtual format. As always, we’re looking...
Dec 21, 202112 min read
A 2021 narrative reading list to launch your 2022
We’re gathering up the articles, essays, resources, podcasts and more that made us think about how narrative change is working today....
Oct 6, 20214 min read
Narrative Organizing: How we shift power towards justice
Narrative organizing is the act of building, creating and using narrative to shift power towards justice, equity and democracy. Narrative...
Jun 30, 20215 min read
Terms of Abuse: White Supremacy, Structural Racism and White Nationalism
Scot Nakagawa is a Senior Partner at ChangeLab. Scot has spent more than four decades exploring questions of structural racism, white...
Jun 16, 20215 min read
Systems Language for Narrative Power
Science fiction is full of all-knowing villains. They can’t be understood or defeated. The unknown, as storytellers from H. G. Wells to...
NI Blog
Here you will find case studies, interviews, insights, and reflections from staff.
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