For statewide organizations that work on a variety of issues, it can often be difficult for their communications staff to manage and plan strategies to effectively get the word out about all of their organization’s work.

That was the case for two of the 2017 ReFrame mentees — Shaunté Harris of the Ohio Organization Collaborative (OOC) and JaNaé Bates of ISAIAH, a faith-based coalition in Minnesota.  Bates, who is the Communications Director for ISAIAH,  works with member organizations and also runs ISAIAH’s own communications work. Harris is the Digital Communication Coordinator for the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, which works not only in six cities and regions — Cleveland, the Valley, Akron, Columbus, Dayton, and Cincinnati — but runs statewide campaigns as well.

“It becomes a bit challenging at times,” said Harris, referring to the need to juggle different campaigns in different regions at the same time. “At the Reframe opening convening, my mentor recommended that we split up buckets of work within our department, so we could work more effectively. So once my champion and I got back, we did just that. We each have been paired with specific campaigns. This way, our department is informed on statewide issues.”

For Bates, the reality of juggling so many campaigns at once meant ReFrame was all the more helpful. “Because ISAIAH is multi-issue, we have seven simultaneous issues happening on any given day,” Bates said. “With me having so many issue campaigns and so many things to focus on, and so many literal priorities, being able to integrate the communications work I do with the organizing work on the ground, and having the tools to do it, has been an immeasurable, invaluable experience.

JaNaé Bates, ISAIAH The two agree that for statewide multi-issue organizations like theirs, in order to have the most impact, it is critical that organizers be trained as communicators. As part of ReFrame, they have been able to train organizing staff on the importance of integrating communications into all aspects of the work.

“We got organizers to think of the communications department as not just people who get media out to press conferences and actions, but as strategic partners on campaigns,” said OOC’s Harris.

Bates led a similar process at ISAIAH. Now, said Bates, “I’m not the only one doing the social media blasts and drafting media advisories and press releases. Organizers are also trained in how to do that. They’re not just creating these actions and then saying, ‘Oh and JaNae will handle the communications.’ It’s completely integrated. They’re thinking about it in the forefront.”

This already has led to results. “You’re doing this amazing work, but if nobody knows about it, it did not happen,” said Bates. “Reorienting them to realize communications is also a core part of their job has been great in building capacity and building power in the state. Getting that grounding in ReFrame has been a catalyst for us to do really great communications work.”

Deepening organizers’ understanding of strategic communications has made their campaigns not only more efficient, but more effective. As Harris put it: “We don’t win by having big actions and random articles written about us. We win by saying the right thing to the right people to get them to take the action that we need them to take.”

For both Harris and Bates, the ReFrame mentorship has not only helped them integrate communications into the organizing work — it has sharpened their own skills as communicators.

“ReFrame has helped me craft a way to balance all of my work,” Harris said. “It has helped us effectively create a strategic campaign plan around whatever issue the city or area is working on, and not just do press conference after press conference.”

Bates echoed Harris: “Through ReFrame, I’ve learned not just to think as a communicator but as an organizer — I’m strategically figuring out what is going to be the most effective in garnering public attention with the narrative that I want.”

She shared one example from this past year: as she and leaders from ISAIAH’s member organizations were brainstorming an action to preserve paid sick days for 150,000 Minnesotans, Bates came up with the idea of using the messaging “Thou shalt not steal 150,000 people’s sick time.” “We wanted to be authentic in our ISAIAH messaging, as we’re faith-based,” Bates explained. “It spread like wildfire. It became the messaging that we basically used throughout the whole legislative session, talking about workers’ wages and health care. Everything was ‘Thou shalt not steal.’ it was so catchy. Even in non-religious coalition spaces, people were chanting that.”

“It was a moment that kind of turned into a movement.”

When we launched ReFrame in 2015, we had one mission in mind: to develop the next generation of strategic communicators — leaders rooted in grassroots movements who understand how to shape and control the narrative and stories about the issues they work on and, equally importantly, have the strategic thinking and skills to do so. For too long, we have seen how organizations and movements treat communications as an afterthought. On the opposite end of the spectrum, some organizations and leaders engage in magical thinking when it comes to communications work, believing that isolated tactics alone can lead to transformational shifts. (A “viral” video, a slick new microsite — sound familiar to anyone?)

Both kinds of thinking need to change. At ReFrame, we believe that this work requires a three-pronged approach:

1. Training individual communicators in strategic communications;
2. Supporting organizations’ ability to integrate strategic communications as a core strategy; and
3. Strengthening the ability of organizations to increase the strategic capacity of entire networks, sectors, and movements in which they operate.

Since our launch, we have trained 33 mentees from organizations working on some of the most pressing issues of our time — from immigrant rights to the movement for Black lives, climate change to workers’ rights. Three years in, we’ve learned some important lessons. We offer up what we’ve learned as a reminder to all of us that investing in strategic communications capacity can lead not only to campaign victories — it can shift the terrain that we work on, tilling the soil for long-term, transformational change. At a time when we are witnessing the resurgence of right-wing movements, this work is even more critical.

1. Training and mentorship is key — and investing in both can lead to major wins.

“Before ReFrame, I didn’t have a sense of what strategic communications was. Now I know enough to know what bad or non-strategic communications looks like. Now that I have this awareness, I can help cultivate and institutionalize an organization-wide sensibility around this. I now have a strategic communications lens in my head, and there is no turning back.”
— Clarke Gocker, PUSH Buffalo

“ReFrame has been an experience of a lifetime that taught me a lot of lessons about communications strategy. Got Green is now in more control of the climate narrative in Seattle.”
— Hodan Hassan, Got Green

At ReFrame, we train mentees in everything from how to gain the right kind of press coverage to ways to use new communications and digital tools to higher-level strategies on how to shift the underlying narratives that shape issue environments. At the end of the program, all of our mentees reported they had deepened their understanding of communications strategy and felt more confident in developing and implementing tactics and strategy.

Here are just a few examples of the work that our mentees led, with the support of ReFrame:

• At BYP100, we supported mentee L’lerrét Jazelle Ailith,​ who developed and ran a communications strategy for “Freedom Now,” a national day of action that focused attention on the need to divest from police departments and invest in communities. This work led to high-profile press coverage, introducing a transformative demand into the debate around police accountability and reform.
• In the Twin Cities, our mentee Stephanie Gasca at Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en La Lucha (CTUL) played a leading role in crafting communications strategy for the coalition that successfully pushed for expansive paid sick days legislation.
• And in California, ReFrame mentees at several domestic worker organizations helped guide the communications work that led to winning permanent protections for domestic workers, as a prior bill was about to sunset.

2. By shifting dominant narratives, we strengthen our capacity to win and set ourselves up for long-term victories.

“Before ReFrame, I wasn’t sure if it was possible to reframe our narratives, but [as an organizer] going through the process from a communications standpoint has made me realize that comms is just as important [as organizing], because it plays a major role in tilling the soil to change our narrative.”
—Stephanie Gasca Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en Lucha

Too often, we think of communications work as holding press conferences and accumulating media hits. But when we integrate an “upstream” communications strategy — in the form of reframing the debate, counter-narratives and tailored audience targeting — we can shift the advantage away from opponents and shift the narrative, setting us up for long-term victories.

Here’s one example: By the end of summer 2016, California Governor Jerry Brown had signed six climate justice bills into law — and according to mentee Kay Cuanjuco of the California Environmental Justice Alliance (CEJA), these bills might not have passed without integrating communications with organizing.

Before ReFrame, CEJA was strong on tactics, such as developing visuals and videos to carry their messages. But with ReFrame support, CEJA developed a larger strategy that included narrative analysis, development of a counter-narrative, and audience segmentation that moved a common story and ensured their visuals, videos, op-eds, and earned media reached the people they most needed to sway.

As a result, they succeeded in lifting up stories and solutions from communities working on climate issues at the grassroots level, making the argument that these programs could benefit from more state support to bring them to scale — precedent-setting policy change for environmental and climate justice and a win-win for impacted communities and for California.

3. The progressive movement needs a deep and long lasting investment in strategic communications capacity at the organizational and networked level in order to win.  

Over the past several years, we have seen the growth of a vibrant, creative, grassroots civil rights movement, from the movement for Black Lives to Not1More to the resistance at Standing Rock. And we have seen how quickly those gains can be halted by a powerful and emboldened far-right movement. How do we move forward?

More than ever, ReFrame is committed to responding to the needs of our movements and to contributing to the development of a robust progressive communications ecosystem. We must move forward in a new way, in order to defend our gains and advance visionary narratives that reframe what is possible, even in the hardest of times.

We are ready to expand our work as part of the solution. Join the next generation of strategic communicators and help build the capacity of our movements to not only win, but to shift the boundaries of what’s possible. Join ReFrame: http://www.reframementorship.org/apply-now.html

Reflection and evaluation allows us to understand if we are on the path to realizing our dreams. Heading into our third year of building the next generation of social justice  communicators, we took time to reflect on what we have done so far. We produced a report the evaluates our work and offers lessons for the field on what it takes to integrate communications as a core strategy for social change. Here is the introduction of the report.

ReFrame is moving forward by doubling down on our commitment to developing skilled communications leaders for the social justice field. The ReFrame Mentorship, in this period of consolidated right-wing political power and media control, reaffirms the need for a rigorous investment in the development of progressive, grassroots communications strategists.

Now, more than ever, we need grassroots social justice leaders with the high-level skills necessary to influence public debate.

We are moving forward with this commitment for two reasons. First, our evaluation shows we are succeeding in developing the next generation of grassroots communications strategists for the social justice field. Second, history shows that we needed this kind of rigorous, continuous communications leadership development at least a generation ago.

This is part of how we got here.

​For too long in the social justice field, we’ve treated communications as an afterthought or a magic bullet. These trends emerge from a common misunderstanding of communications as a tactical activity rather than a core strategy. This misunderstanding leads local and regional organizations astray. Rather than proactively building communications capacities and seeking support to do so, organizations respond and react instead of shaping and controlling the conversation on their issue.

At the same time, few foundations and donors have funded communications infrastructure that would enable grassroots organizations to prioritize communications as a core strategy. Rather than invest in grassroots-based communications leaders, both organizations and funders over-rely on outsourcing to PR firms based in New York, the Beltway, etc. Many of these firms lack adequate understanding of social justice goals and grassroots organizing strategies. Others lack the cultural competency to effectively work with the most impacted populations, especially those outside of urban centers like New York and Washington, D.C.

Ironically, the right-wing has long operated with a clear understanding of strategic communications. Various factions on the Right, from moderate conservatives, to the Tea Party, to the so-called “Alt-Right,” have long understood that strategic communications is central to advancing political agendas and requires a long-term, multi-faceted approach. This approach includes the development of skilled strategists, investment in long-term agendas, creation and maintenance of infrastructure, and the placement of strategists as “meaning-makers” in all arenas of society, from the grassroots to government, from think tanks to academia. Conservative funders — including the Koch Brothers — have invested in this approach to strategic communications for decades, often in the form of large grants with little-to-no strings attached.

As a result, the Right boasts a bloc of well-known pundits and be- hind-the-scenes architects, like famed communications strategist James O’Keefe (see sidebar on page 6), who have built a lasting infrastructure and an echo chamber that seeks to undermine progressive movements. There is no question that this right-wing communications machine fueled Trump’s rise to power and continues to push the socio-political landscape toward bigotry and hate.

But we are ready to push back.

ReFrame is heeding Grace Lee Boggs’ prescient call to action: “We are at one of the great turning points in human history … [we] cannot continue in the same old way.”

At a sector level, this means taking bold steps toward deeper investment in a robust communications ecosystem. The ReFrame Mentorship is one part of the solution, working in coordination with experts in digital organizing, capacity building and strategic communications to strengthen communications infrastructure and leadership for the social justice field.

We offer this evaluation of ReFrame’s second year in the spirit of building this ecosystem together.

We are committed to growing our impact, sharing our lessons and modeling what it means to “do things differently” for immediate gains and long-term change. We thank all of our funders, mentors and participants for believing in ReFrame from the beginning, and we urge others to prioritize strategic communications as a core strategy so that we all can win, BIG!