“I needed this. Thought partnership is incredibly important, peer support can make our experiences and keep us in the work. This cohort is a great combination of head and heart.” - Sheena Rolle, Senior Director of Strategy at Florida Rising and 2022 Senior Narrative Power Cohort member
On an autumn morning in Phoenix, AZ, 11 people in a modest hotel conference room dove deep into self-reflection, and then joined together in pairs and small groups. They leaned into trust and quickly fell into connected conversations about their lives and work. If you squinted you could see new threads of connection, alignment, and vision weaving through the space, glinting in the desert sun that streamed through the windows.
The 11 people in that conference room are strategists leading scaled narrative power building efforts across the country. They come from organizations grounded in the legacy and practice of organizing and movement building. They are all members of ReFrame’s inaugural Senior Narrative Power Cohort - an eight-month program designed to support senior level strategists in their work through peer-to-peer engagement and individual coaching. Through the program, they are afforded access to real-time narrative research and $60,000 each to be applied to a narrative project of their choosing. But the cohort goes beyond support, it is a container for continued network weaving, seeding collaboration, and strengthening the social justice narrative power infrastructure.
“By the nature of this work and our current conditions, it's easy to feel isolated so I'm grateful for the container of this cohort, particularly as I am tasked to build a culture and infrastructure for communications for my organization and the broader movement.” - Jennifer Dillon, Managing Director of Communications at the Advancement Project and 2022 Senior Narrative Power Cohort member.
The inaugural Senior Narrative Power Cohort includes: Jennifer Dillon of Advancement Project, Saa’un Bell of Power California, Minister JaNaé Bates of ISAIAH & Faith in Minnesota, Jonathan Alingu of Central Florida Jobs with Justice, Sheena Rolle of Florida Rising, Sebastian Saavedra of Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, Aimée Castenell of Working Families Party, Rey Wences of Unemployed Workers United, Nailah Summers-Polite of Dream Defenders, Amanda Cháves Barnes of Women’s March and Eric Brakken of Florida For All.
We called on leaders with a deep understanding and practice of organizing and narrative power building as a key piece in the journey to justice and liberation to participate in the cohort, and they answered.
Since 2015 when we launched the ReFrame Mentorship, we have been investing in leaders and organizations to build a durable, long-term narrative power infrastructure that along with organizing, can bend the arc of history towards justice. In line with this vision, we saw an opening that led us to the Senior Narrative Power Cohort.
With this groundbreaking program, we hope to usher in more strategists into similar programs for the longevity and livelihood of our movements and society.
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