The Stories We Tell: Narratives About Civil Society

Introduction

Civil society organizations (CSOs) around the world are facing a rising wave of narrative attacks designed to delegitimize their work, sever public trust, and justify legal and political repression. The Trust, Accountability and Inclusion (TAI) Collaborative commissioned this study to explore how narrative strategies can be leveraged to counteract these attacks, foster support for civil society, and strengthen inclusive democratic participation.

This study is based on interviews conducted with 20 global experts, a review of narrative-focused literature, and analysis of trends across diverse political contexts. It offers insights into how funders and civil society actors can develop and disseminate effective narratives that build legitimacy, bridge divisions, and counter authoritarian efforts.

Key Findings

1. Narrative Attacks Are Global and Systematic: Governments and other powerful actors customarily deploy dismissive narratives —such as portraying CSOs as “foreign agents,” “corrupt,” or “extremist”—to erode civic space and justify repression.
2. Narratives Are Not Just About Messaging: Effective narrative work goes beyond communication strategies. It involves shaping deeper cultural values, lived experiences, and long-term public engagement. Narrative change must be embedded in organizational structure, partnerships, and strategy.
3. Defensive Strategies Are Not Enough: Simply combatting or resisting hostile narratives often reinforces them. Civil society must proactively create compelling alternative narratives rooted in shared values, empathy, hope, and relevance to people’s everyday lives.
4. Trust Is Foundational: Building trust through authentic engagement with communities is crucial. People are more likely to support CSOs when they see them working on local issues that matter. “Being the narrative” means aligning actions and values with the story being told.
5. A Bigger Story Is Needed: Narratives focused solely on civil society are unlikely to resonate broadly. Instead, CSOs should be part of a larger, value-driven narrative that reflects collective aspirations for justice, belonging, and dignity.
6. Cultural Relevance and Community Engagement Matter: Narratives must resonate at the local level, through trusted messengers and tailored approaches. Engaging arts, culture, and community influencers are powerful ways to root narratives in lived experience.
7. Cross-Sector Coalitions and Long-Term Infrastructure Are Essential: Narrative power grows through networks, collaborations, and shared vision. Funders and CSOs must invest in the infrastructure, skills, and relationships needed to sustain long-term narrative work.
8. Avoid Polarization and Othering: Effective narratives should not deepen societal divides. Approaches grounded in empathy, listening, and shared values are more successful in countering authoritarian polarization tactics.
9. Funders Must Adapt: Donors play a key role in enabling narrative work by offering flexible, long-term support, funding infrastructure, and helping civil society actors move from reactive to proactive narrative strategies.

Recommendations

These are highlights, see the full list in the Recommendations section at the end of the report PDF.

• Invest in Long-Term Narrative Ecosystems: Fund narrative infrastructure, not just campaigns. Prioritize collaboration, learning, and adaptation over time.
• Support Community-Based, Value-Driven Work: Help Civil Society Organisations engage deeply with local communities and amplify narratives rooted in shared human values.
• Enable Risk Management and Protection: Funders must help partners manage risks associated with narrative work in repressive environments.
• Encourage Experimentation and Learning: Provide space for creative approaches and reflection to evolve narrative practices across different geographies and cultural, social contexts.

Contents

1. INTRODUCTION
   Main Objectives
   Caveats and Challenges
2. WHAT ARE WE TALKING ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT NARRATIVES?
   Narratives, Deep Narratives, Meta-Narratives and Beyond
   Narratives with Different Objectives
3. CONTEXT AND BACKGROUND
4. WHAT WE LEARNED
   Bigger Story, Larger Narrative
   Don’t Fight Fire with Fire
   From Denunciation to Invitation
   The Importance of Trust
   Building a ‘Larger Us’
5. GETTING NARRATIVES OUT INTO THE WORLD
   ‘Being the Narrative’
   Moving Beyond Old Models of Communication
   The Role of Culture and the Importance of Community
   Voices from the ‘Outside’
   Courage and Risk
6. RECOMMENDATIONS
   General Recommendations for Funding Narratives that Support Civil Society
   Recommendations on Narratives Work where Civic Space is Restricted
   Recommendations on How to Manage Risks
   Evaluation of Narratives
7. RESOURCES
8. GLOSSARY ON NARRATIVES

Extract: The Importance of Trust

An important issue that respondents emphasized and which cuts across many findings was about the importance of trust.

Building trust insulates civil society actors from the narratives that are deployed against them. Having trust also means that the narratives that you are seeking to disseminate are more likely to be listened to and to have an impact.

We are, however, living at a time when trust in many institutions and sectors is decreasing. Indeed, it is this diminishing trust in many democratic institutions and mainstream parties that is encouraging voters to turn to populist authoritarians who come from outside of the political establishment and promise to ‘drain the swamp’. At the same time, these politicians seek to curtail trust in independent civil society by labeling them as ‘corrupt’ or as ‘foreign agents.

The process of building trust and legitimacy and maintaining it is not an easy one. An organization in South Asia claimed that it managed to build trust with those people whom it is trying to shift away from authoritarian populist parties. It did this by being present in their communities, supporting them in addressing the issues that they were struggling with. In other words, trust is built through actions and not words.

Unfortunately, it is as easy to destroy trust as it is difficult to build it. Given human psychology, we tend to give more weight to negative information than to positive information (negative bias), and we can see this in practice in far-right messaging designed to undermine trust and to delegitimize civil society. We believe that such smears take root more easily when their objects are unknown and the value of their work is not understood. Smear campaigns are not new, and we see their chilling effect on civil society organizations, as in the case of Canada’s smear campaign against environmental and indigenous rights groups that opposed oil sands development and pipeline expansion under the Harper Government in 2011–2015.

CSOs therefore need to be able to show the relevance of their work to their communities, and their agendas should reflect these efforts (at least partially). It is inadvisable to neglect societal and economic challenges. While not all organizations can or should engage in service delivery, they can all find ways to build connection and trust. A legal organization, for instance, can offer pro-bono legal support or offer legal advice. Working in networks and coalitions across thematic areas and geographies is another way of building community.

Trust can act as a catalyst, making individuals more open to broader democratic values, human rights, gender justice, and racial equity. It serves as a gateway to advocating for more profound societal changes.

Authors

Eszter Filippinyi is the deputy director of the Trust, Accountability and Inclusion Collaborative with international experience working in the philanthropy and civil society sectors. Her passion is to build and support inclusive and diverse spaces for collective thinking and action to advance social justice – at the nexus of democratic values, economy and climate.

James Logan is the advisor and co-author of this paper -is a consultant who supports charities and foundations on strategy, innovation and organizational development. He brings experience as an activist, grant-maker, and researcher and a background in building the narrative power of human rights organizations. He has previously helped to establish the Thomas Paine Initiative in the United Kingdom as well as the Global Narrative Hive, a network for activists to learn and collaborate around narrative strategies.

Darlington Marange is a human rights lawyer from Zimbabwe. He has experience in strategic and public interest litigation, legal research, community engagement, and advocacy for the human rights of marginalized communities. His special area of interest is defending and expanding civic space. In 2024, Darlington worked four months at TAI as an IREX Fellow.

Download Resource

The Stories We Tell PDF

The Narrative Resource List for Civil Society Organisations is a GoogleSheet which lists the many references cited in the report.

Explore Further

Explore more resources from the TAI Collaborative:

• Why Narratives Matter: Reframing Democracy for Today with Josh Lerner and Diana Dajer – Thank You Democracy Podcast
• 10 Lessons to Defend and Renew Democracy
• The Playbook for African Democrats
• Podcast – How to Save Democracy
• Democracy Narratives in Action
• 2025 Democracy Briefer for Funders: What’s Happening to European Democracy and What Funders Can Do About It
• Successful Democracies Breed Their Own Support

Explore more resources on The Commons Library:

• Narrative Change: Start Here
• The Role of Narrative Change in Influencing Policy
• Shifting the Narrative: What it Takes to Reframe the Debate for Social Justice in the US
• Be the Narrative: How Changing the Narrative Could Revolutionize What it Means to do Human Rights
• Democracy Narrative Resources
• Building Narrative Power
• Empowering & Supporting Storytellers: Tools for NGOs & Advocates
• Exploring Narrative Practices for Broad-based Movements in Contexts of Democratic Decline