Narrative is not a communications strategy to be layered on top of organizing campaigns but fundamental to the work we do as organizers: expanding people’s sense of possibility, agency, and power to create change.

Two of the architects of the narrative turn in organizing talk about the changes in community organizing that they’ve helped to spark over the past thirty years. Now that organizers have embraced narrative work and begun analyzing political and economic systems, they argue, it’s time to talk about ideology.

Miya Yoshitani has “shovel-ready” ideas for how the current crisis could prompt a just transition from the extractive economy to a regenerative economy.

Organizers for the National Domestic Workers Alliance and Caring Across Generations talk about how we can move to a narrative of caregiving as a collective responsibility that demands collective solutions.

Challenging the power structure and the assumptions of capitalism requires building a movement with millions of people. We can only do that if we transform the dominant worldview.

Most people operate under a set of competing narratives. Our job is to bring their most progressive understanding of the world to the fore.

Narrative is not a messaging strategy but the story driving the entire campaign.

To guarantee a home for everyone, we must stop treating housing as a commodity and see it as a public good and a human right.

To win the freedom to marry for gays and lesbians, we didn’t need new arguments. We didn’t need to find new rights. We needed to transform the hearts and minds of the public.

"This is going to be the decade of Reconstruction if we can organize well."

Retail corporations tell powerful narratives about the irresistible forces of economic and technological change to obscure the impact of their focus on short-term profits — often at the expense of workers. Winning campaigns with retail workers requires changing those narratives.

Why we must move beyond “welfare queens” and “superpredators” to narratives that create opportunities for all of us.

Narrative strategy is integral to organizing and can create a powerful role for people in public life.

The global economy encourages corporations to ship raw materials and goods around the planet but punishes workers who cross borders. Here’s how immigrant organizers in Florida are fighting back.

Extractive racial capitalism is destroying the planet, but a thriving democracy can save us.