In 2024, ReFrame partnered with the Million Voters Project (MVP) and Power California (PowerCA) on a six-month, cutting-edge, field-defining narrative power program to accelerate narrative change from the ground up. MVP is a statewide formation of local, regional and statewide power building organizations in California, leveraging the power of organizing, integrated voter engagement (IVE) and narrative to advance their long term agenda. This program, titled Echos Academy, was rooted in MVP’s long-term agenda, narrative stepping stones and framework of narrative infrastructure, as well as ReFrame’s approach to building ecosystems of narrative power that center organizing, led by impacted communities, to expand the public notion of what is possible. While the term narrative has gained prevalence in social movement and power-building spaces over the years, ReFrame programming supported deepening understanding and practical application of narrative strategies along and inside of broader power-building strategies.
“Prior to this program, I feel like internally, when we spoke about narrative work, it seemed very abstract.But through the experiment and putting that into practice and creating tangible things. It created an example of what narrative work could and should be in our organization and with others. So I think throughout this program, it's really showed us how we can do this work in a less abstract way.” - Jay Chotirmal, CAUSE
ReFrame’s objective was to design all facets of the Academy and to train a cohort of 50 principals and practitioners from 20 MVP organizations through both 101 and 201 level modules. We kicked the program off with an in-person bootcamp in Costa Mesa, CA and then took it virtual, hosting weekly trainings on narrative strategy fundamentals such as audience segmentation, combatting mis-and disinformation and narrative landscaping. The real heart of Echos Academy lay in the narrative experiments, in which the cohort designed and led individual and collaborative projects aimed at advancing MVP’s narrative stepping stones and 2024 policy agenda utilizing the strategic and tactical skills learned in the Academy.
We tapped various parts of the ReFrame infrastructure to support this program. Long-time ReFrame comrades Janna Zinzi, Nina Smith, Chelsea Fuller and Jamila Aisha Brown stepped into coaching roles for the cohort and provided tremendous support to participants. And, our research team brought in our weather station and assembled IRL case studies to demonstrate narrative change in the immediate and over time. The Academy closed in November with overwhelming positive feedback, demonstrating the power and importance of investment in narrative infrastructure, particularly for grassroots, base building organizations.
“Reflecting back to early 2023, and then all of 2023, there was a deep desire to build narrative power without necessarily knowing how. There wasn't capacity to do it alone, especially when our teams are already small. And so, having this space where we could build relationships, support each other, lean on each other, share narrative best practices, divide the work, and build on each other's resources, was just so helpful “ - Rita Gabriela Marquez, California Calls
“We were doing it already, but didn't know it, and we needed the language and framing” - Akil Bell, Black Women for Wellness
What does the success of Echos tell us about the future of narrative power? The future of narrative power rests with more programs like Echos, and more investment in formations like MVP. Programs like the Echos Academy work to aggregate and amplify the numbers, demands, stories, and narratives of coalitions and grassroots groups. Their partnership with ReFrame ensured that narrative and communications practitioners across the state of California not only had a shared language and framework around what narrative is or isn’t, but were able to put their lessons learned into practical application. As a result of Echos, 20 MVP partner organizations are now in deeper coordination with each other, advancing unified stories and shared narratives as part of regional and statewide power-building strategies. In these times, where progressive ideas, issues and narratives are being shellacked, wielding our narrative power is a clear path forward.
.jpeg)
.png)
%20(1).png)
