We’re in It Together, and We Get Out Together

No, you’re not just imagining it. The entire landscape of messaging has completely shifted, and now anyone trying to say something on behalf of other people has new rules and strategies to learn. The reason is that the tectonic plates of our democracy have dramatically shifted; the average person is far more concerned about where we’re headed as a society, and everyone is facing uncertainty. Whether or not we can address it directly, every organization is being forced to respond to authoritarianism, and how comms professionals communicate this has really high stakes.

The experts in nonprofit comms teach you that giving people a small way to contribute to massive societal problems helps the audience feel like the hero in the story. It’s supposed to be a win-win. For the org, it gets people off the sidelines to volunteer or donate. For people with busy lives and disposable income, this is a way to give back and strengthen their communities. You answer to the donor with impact metrics and annual reporting, and everyone should be happy. This lane, often called “impact comms,” is effective on the surface layers of narrative work–particularly in certain subject areas where you can maintain the binary of helper versus the person being helped.

Now, the helper versus helped binary is dissolving everywhere, and orgs that have never had to communicate the workings of democracy are pivoting to educate their audiences–not just to save the orgs from shuttering completely but to also save the democracy itself. Now communicators have to satisfy the demand of their audience for collective solutions (otherwise known as liberation) in balance with what the organization actually offers as programming. In this new reality, we are all the helpers, and we are all the ones being helped.

I was permanently thrust into deep narrative work during the pandemic when, as an affordable housing advocate, I was supporting a team trying to translate the exponential impacts of the virus on marginalized communities and their access to housing. With so many people navigating surging real estate prices, the audience went from wanting to pitch in to the annual campaign to seeking solutions at scale seemingly overnight as their ability to afford a new home shifted with the market. With so many more people feeling stuck, we were war-rooming big brand questions. What did structural change even mean to the org? How were we using our resources to unlock it, and oh–someone said they just tried to call their legislator and got their voicemail again, so what’s next? (Yet another reason comms should be at the table during org-wide strategy, but I digress.)

Turns out, people don’t want to look for the smallest possible start that may snowball into societal change over time when it comes to their own freedoms and economic mobility. In fact, it’s when you offer the small way to contribute to a massive, structural problem that the despair actually overwhelms them. So as every org in the nonprofit sector that relies on any form of structural support tries to stabilize amid funding cuts in 2026, what should we be saying?

Before we go straight there, let’s not gloss over what this shift means at the deep narrative level lest we lose the most precious learnings the climate has to offer. Yes, we are facing unprecedented (getting rather used to that word) instability, but what’s emerging is a collective consciousness that can remake our reality for the better, if we harness it for liberation. Hard-core individualism has competition, at least right now. We should all be thinking about how to keep it from ever dominating again, regardless of who’s in office.

Now, solutions.

Frameworks, one of my favorite organizations working on narrative, extensively researches and publishes on this exact topic of “self-makingness” versus collective solutions. Their white paper Reframing Work, Rebalancing Power: Three Framing Strategies That Connect Jobs with Economic Justice is clutch for making sense out of this moment and has examples of how to apply the strategies, which are

1. Highlight how our systems channel people into different sectors (It is not FAIR that certain people are forced into doing certain jobs because of factors beyond their control like race or where they were born)

2. Name and explain exploitative forces (WHO or WHICH entity is doing WHAT and to WHOM)

3. Call for collective worker action as a response to the rigged system.

I don’t want to flatten the white paper to a few lines because it’s so rich with usable material. If you’re in comms right now, it’s a must-read and includes pro-labor messaging on AI and recommendations on solidarity. Seriously, attend their free webinars and ask questions. But the most important thing for each of these strategic points is to use specific (but not jargony) language and to be extremely precise. The more ambiguous we are, the easier it is for fatalism to set in or for people to turn a “the system is rigged” message into unfounded conspiracy. It’s also important to be bold. We have to tell our audiences what the stakes are, but also what’s possible if we act collectively to implement real remedies. This opens up brands to incorporate dialogues around topics like reparations where they might have seemed out of reach before. Honestly, so much is becoming possible if we can be resourced to adapt.

This quote gets me through so much, and I thought of it while reading this white paper:

“This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

~ Toni Morrison, “No Place for Self-Pity, No Room for Fear,” The Nation, March 2015

Replace “artists” with “over-caffeinated comms teams trying to rewire imaginations,” and go forth to liberate.

Sound off in the comments: what are you seeing from your outposts? Are your orgs making the pivot? Is there a plan? I want to hear it all.

Lauren is a liberation communications strategist and the founder of Bound for Good, a Research Triangle–rooted practice serving organizations in housing, education, and economic justice. Learn more.