Understanding Narrative Power

Nonprofit Quarterly invited me to talk to their audience about narrative power. Find an excerpt below and all three videos here.

Every issue, campaign, and policy that organizations propagate comes with a built-in story—complete with characters whose values are in some way threatened, a moral dilemma, a solution rooted in our vision of society, and a call to action to imagine or create something new or different.

Each of those stories has a narrative genealogy—the oral, written, or otherwise-known account or record of the central values, ideas, beliefs and motivations from which the narrative evolved. Society possesses a structure of interconnected parts and subsystems that influence each other in systematic ways, and within this structure, stories and narratives are the glue that holds those parts together. 

Unlike traditional marketing for good strategies, building narrative power for social justice requires the use of counternarratives—narratives derived from the most marginalized individuals and communities—to reimagine our existence and to expand the dimensions of what is considered “normal” and acceptable. In this way, we replace dominant frames and narratives with diverse and inclusive stories. 

Narrative power necessitates that we not only center the experiences of the people in closest proximity to oppression, but that we also work toward models whereby those who are most impacted are a part of leading, identifying solutions, setting priorities, creating policy agendas, and shifting narratives about human value. 

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