Table of Contents (5) - Flipbook - Page 12
F
REFLECTIONS FROM OUR
FOUNDER AND BOARD CHAIR
rameWorks began as an inquiry.
Could a science-based approach to communicating social issues help advocates better
engage constituencies? Twenty-five years later, there is ample evidence to suggest that
good social science can yield strong outcomes for progressive change and that the
resulting strategies can be incorporated into the game plans of NGOs large and small,
local and international. We are honored and humbled to find ourselves now in the midst of
a movement to make communications central to mission.
That sea-change did not happen easily nor overnight. For more than two decades,
researchers have experimented with various frame elements—from metaphors and
values to social math and narrative—documenting the effects of these thinking devices
on policy preferences. At the same time, FrameWorks has tried numerous ways to engage
the field of practice and to share its findings such that front-line advocates could adopt
and adapt to suit their specific challenges. Over the course of this work, communications
has earned a seat at the nonprofit strategy table that it lacked previously. Old confusions
with PR and dissemination have faded as the power of an evidence-based narrative has
become visible across issues, over time, regardless of place.
Never has this work been more important than now. Understanding how policy
preferences reflect culture is foundational to changing those opinions. Moving NGO
communications practice from litanies of data to tested explanations is imperative if
people are to make progress in understanding social and natural phenomena.
Evidence-based framing is not a luxury but a core part of the work we do as advocates
for a better world.
FrameWorks celebrates the development of these new tools, even as we recognize the
necessity to continue the inquiry. New methods and techniques hold even more promise
for making us all better at what we do. May the next decade of FrameWorks’ evolution and
its collaboration with the field of practice yield powerful new narratives to repair the world.
SUSAN NALL BALES
FOUNDER
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