Part II: A Deep Dive into Narrative Strategy
What is narrative strategy and how can you apply it to your work?
Stories are integral to the success of organizations and leaders. Every day, we tell stories about how and why we do the work we do. We share about impact and offer proof to secure buy-in, attract funding, and deliver results.
But who do we tell these stories for? Why do we craft these stories and how? In part one of this blog series, I talked about how, against a backdrop of limited resources, the 2010 recognition of Little Bangladesh caused some community members in the overlapping Koreatown to question what to name the neighborhood. Instances like these show just how powerful stories about our communities really are. The power of these narratives accumulates as these stories are shared more frequently and over longer periods of time.
When we consider that this is a strategy and that it can be used both to oppress and to empower, narrative strategy becomes a necessary tool in systems change work to shift paradigms and create a just and more equitable future.
Yet, many of us navigate a difficult paradox as changemakers: We feel accountable to those who bring resources to our work. The stories we tell are inherently shaped by this. Often these funder-driven stories uphold problematic dynamics, such as perpetuating negative stereotypes of communities or deepening imbalances of power. The stories that are effective at securing resources are not always the same stories that promote the dignity and goals of communities we mean to serve.
Additionally, immediate communication needs – whether to secure funding or garner media attention for the crisis at hand – usually feel urgent, creating a seemingly competing priority. This provides a sense of justification to use status quo narratives as a means to an end. Pressing communication needs then take priority over the meticulous, persistent and long-term work of dismantling oppressive narratives, which is nuanced and insidious. Because of these dynamics, it can be too easy to find ourselves at the whim of mainstream narratives.
As professionals in the business of creating real systemic change, our duty becomes disrupting this cycle. The act of crafting and telling a story must be in right relationship with the communities that we serve.
Fractal Strategies works with clients to harness the power of narrative strategy to create the change our communities deserve. Two integrated components underlie our approach:
Targeted Universalism
We understand that communities face different barriers and advantages when working toward universal goals. While partners may gravitate towards removing barriers to achieving these universal goals, organizations can also pay equal attention to the targeted supports that a community uniquely needs to reach a universal goal. Focusing on each community’s unique needs can help us build structures that address our deepest inequities.
To do this, integrating Targeted Universalism requires organizations to gather data on how each group is performing towards the universal goal. We must break down data by gender, ethnicity, and other demographic categories to understand the many identities that reflect our community, recognizing that identities are fluid and intersectional. This allows us to have a data-backed approach to reflection and examine whether our strategies are working for our communities.
Belonging and Bridging
Belonging is the antidote to “othering” — or racism. It provides a way to frame the world we envision through a lens of inclusion. It is both practical and aspirational. From the community perspective, belonging can mean feeling authentically included, having a meaningful voice, and having the opportunity to participate in the design of social and cultural structures. It means that community members can shape the economic, social, and political systems and structures that they live and work in. Our partners can make tangible progress by embedding specific behaviors and practices into their everyday work (called “bridging”), but they must also measure their ongoing evolution and growth to tell the story of their work.
At Fractal Strategies, we actively practice these principles and support organizations to integrate them into their culture and work — all while measuring and demonstrating their efficacy through a lens of belonging and bridging.
At the root of narrative strategy is the belief that the “how” of our work is just as – if not more – transformational as the “why” or the “what.”
These tools and approaches can align communities in a shared narrative about how they want their neighborhoods to look and feel like. To create movements that draw from a wide cross section of community partners, we must use narrative strategy to identify what we want to convey about our community (“for us, by us”). An important part of this is dismantling and disrupting stories that have limited our ability to address the deepest inequities. But even more importantly, narrative strategy brings us together to use our radical imagination for our collective future and rethink the systems that govern our communities.