Title reads 'Funding Narrative Change, Power and Systems'. There are orange and yellow connected communication nodes around the title.

Funding Narrative Change, Power and Systems

Introduction

What are the best ways to fund and support narrative change, power and systems? Here is a collection of resources including indepth reports, podcasts and recent articles with insights and recommendations.

This is a living list please contact us if you have any related resources to add.

Resources

Reports

Funding Narrative Change: An Assessment and Framework by the Convergence Partnership
2022, Mik Moore, Rinku Sen, Convergence Partnership

This report shares the findings of a field scan of the narrative change work going on in racial justice and health equity philanthropy, with a focus on leading foundations, funder tables, and narrative change practitioners. Its goal is to help increase the sector’s shared understanding of the state of the field, including best practices for narrative change work in philanthropy. The authors’ propose a framework for funders and practitioners to shift narratives via mass culture, mass media, and mass movements. 

CZI’s Emergent Approach to Narrative Investments: Lessons for the Narrative Curious
2023, Rob Avruch, Chan Zukerberg Initiative

This report by the Chan Zukerberg Initiative offers lesssons and recommendations for funders engaged at various points in narrative grantmaking efforts. Recommendations included:

  • Invest in narrative people.
  • Center those working on the frontlines in ongoing research and measurement efforts.
  • Provide technical assistance to help practitioners put research into practice.
  • Foster ongoing convening and partnership opportunities.

We believe that if funders can more readily collaborate on longer-term narrative change investment plans that cut across funding, institutions, and issue siloes, then we will be better positioned to build and sustain public will not just for housing affordability but also for other interconnected fights for equity and justice.

From Stories to Systems: Using a Narrative Systems Approach to Inform Pop Culture Narrative Change Grantmaking
2020, Bridgit Antoinette Evans, Pop Culture Collaborative

In this foundational paper for funders and field practitioners, Bridgit explains the Collaborative’s approach to narrative systems design — the responsive narrative framework and strategy at the heart of the Collaborative’s grantmaking and field organizing strategies, and helps us imagine what it will take to transform our narrative waters. 

The Pop Culture Collaborative investigated the question of how narratives and stories could become catalysts for widespread cultural change. Their 6 Key Discoveries were:

  • 1. The Goal is to transform narrative oceans.
  • 2. The Work is to achieve narrative immersion.
  • 3. To Achieve narrative immersion, fund narrative networks.
  • 4. Narrative Systems accelerate the pace of change.
  • 5. The Work also involves shifting the power in Hollywood.
  • 6. Professionals, Fans and Communities are all creators.

Questions to Consider for Grantmakers

  • “Funding pop culture narrative change work involves simultaneously supporting efforts to
    achieve narrative immersion (coordinated content) and the narrative infrastructure
    (research, pipelines, networks, convenings, core capacity) needed to achieve this
    immersion. What portion of your grantmaking will you allocate to each of these areas?
  • How will you bring your grantees, coworkers, leadership, and board into your exploration of a
    narrative systems approach? How might your grantmaking strategy evolve based on the
    outcomes of a narrative system design process involving these stakeholders?
  • How will you bring together your grantees and other stakeholders (other funders, staff,
    board members) to collaboratively develop a shared culture change goal and conduct a
    mental model analysis process?” p.30

To build narrative power—by creating deep narrative immersion in new narrative environments—philanthropy must substantially expand the resources available to field practitioners to work together with shared goals and intentionally aligned narrative and cultural strategies. p.5

…because narratives are shaped by and disseminated through mass media and mass culture, it is important to support efforts in those spaces. And because these projects are big and splashy, they tend to dominate the perception of what narrative change funding supports, even if the reality reflects greater balance between those efforts and community narrative power-building. p.12

Guide cover - title reads 'Storytelling and Social Change A guide for Activists, Organizations and Social Entrepreneurs'. The cover features a collage of abstract, transparent, colourful speech bubbles.

Storytelling and Social Change: A Guide for Activists, Organizations and Social Entrepreneurs
2015, Paul VanDeCarr, Working Narratives

Storytelling can be a part of any grantmaker’s portfolio and strategy. Here we look at how grantmakers can explore narrative strategies; engage with applicants and grantees; and evaluate programs in such a way as to generate valuable learning. Read section – What Grantmakers Can Do (pgs 64-65)

Storytelling can be a part of any grantmaker’s portfolio and strategy. Here we look at how grantmakers can explore narrative strategies; engage with applicants and grantees; and evaluate programs in such a way as to generate valuable learning.

Articles

How can Philanthropy Fund Narrative Power at Scale
2024, Virginia Ruan, Funders Collaborative Hub

Does philanthropy have a scarcity mindset that is holding us back from transformative change? This is one of several questions we explored at the recent Philea Forum on how philanthropy can fund narrative power at scale. – Virginia Ruan, Source

…when we identify the narratives that underpin common philanthropic practices and unpack the ways these faulty logics have created habits that don’t actually serve us, it opens up the possibility to adopt a different set of logics and behaviours that allow us to imagine and live into the world we want, and let go of the ways of operating that are not fit for purpose. – Mandy Van Deven, Source

How Philanthropy can Fund the Infrastructure for Narrative Power
2024, Mandy Van Deven, Philanthropy Europe Association, Republished in Spanish

Narrative practitioners generously shared their knowledge throughout the convening, identifying what philanthropy has overlooked and surfacing priorities for funding. Those priorities included:

  • Spaces and spaciousness that enable deep listening and durable relationship building
  • Collective imagination and visioning toward a shared North Star
  • Coordination across strategies, countries, regions, issues, and identities that deliberately break down arbitrary silos created by funding streams
  • Practices that cultivate healing and solidarity
  • Engagements that emphasise how the work is done (process and methodology) rather than what it produces
  • Approaches that are unproven or experimental, don’t have a predetermined agenda, and facilitate the ability to learn by doing

In essence, practitioners pinpointed where the norms of philanthropy must change if the sector seeks to be a competent partner in advancing narrative change. – Mandy Van Deven

How to Fund Narrative Ecosystems
2024, Mandy Van Deven, Jody Myrum, Notprofit Quarterly, Spanish Version

From our unique vantage point at the intersection of philanthropy and narrative practice, we offer a fragment of the knowledge participants generously offered that is uncommonly heard within philanthropy…we share some of the implications that these insights hold for the practice of grantmaking and capacity building. – Mandy Van Deven, Jody Myrum, Source

Insights included:

  • Ecosystem: Fortifying the Infrastructure for Narrative Power
  • Expertise: Operating in Right Relationship
  • Experimentation: Charting a Course through Uncertainty
  • Endurance: Committing to Our Desired Future
  • Endgame: Where We Can Go Together

Podcasts

Building and Resourcing Narrative Power, Mandy van Deven & Chiara Cattaneo, Philanthropisms, 2024
In this episode we talk to philanthropy and social change experts Mandy van Deven and Chiara Cattaneo about their work on building and resourcing narrative power within civil society. Including:

  • How do you manage the tension between the urgency of issues such as climate breakdown or racial injustice and the fact that narrative work often requires patience and a willingness to work over longer timescales?
  • What is narrative power and why is it such an important tool for CSOs?
  • Does narrative work tend to focus more on developing narratives that are relevant to cause areas in which philanthropic organisations work, or on developing narratives about the nature and role of philanthropy itself?
  • What are the most prevalent narratives about philanthropy that need to be challenged or changed?
  • What are the advantages of adopting an ecosystem approach to resourcing narrative work? How can funders support the various actors in the ecosystem to work well together?
  • What infrastructure is required to enable CSOs to make the most of narrative as a tool?
  • What particular role can foundations play in supporting narrative infrastructure?
  • To what extent does developing narrative power require a willingness not to set specific goals/ timescales or to demand attribution of inputs to outcomes? Does this potentially make it harder to resource if funders demand measurability?

Resourcing Narrative Ecosystems with Mandy Van Deven and Jody Myrum, What Donors Want, 2024
In this episode, Rachel and Emily explore the concept of narrative ecosystems with Mandy Van Deven and Jody Myrum. Together, they dive into:

  • What is a narrative ecosystem, and why is this important?
  • How can philanthropy effectively support narratives of liberation, and fund the infrastructure for narrative power?
  • What is the case for supporting narrative ecosystems and what are the stakes?

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