Narratives are powerful, common frames and stories that help us make sense of a complex world. They shape our values, decisions and understanding of what is possible. But pervasive narratives in our society enable people to justify inequities, undermine efforts to combat structural racism, and perpetuate harm on communities of color. We collaborated with field partners to explore changing narratives that hinder racial equity efforts in the private sector. And across all of our initiatives, we focus on shifting beliefs to advance new ways of working that undo racial inequities.
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Collective Organizing Toward Narrative Change: An Interactive Timeline
Explore the timeline at the end of this post! Over the past four years, we have lived through so many events that have sparked, challenged or reshaped national conversations about race. Donald Trump was elected after a campaign characterized by…
Prudential Sees Racial Equity as a Moral, Economic and Business Imperative
This piece was developed with guidance and input from the Living Cities Narrative Change Working Group, a collective impact consortium composed of foundations, financial institutions and key partners working to harness market forces for economic inclusion by shifting corporate narratives about…
Ben & Jerry’s Approach to Racial Equity: Reach for the Carrot, Don’t Just Avoid the Stick
This piece was developed with guidance and input from the Living Cities Narrative Change Working Group, a collective impact consortium composed of foundations, financial institutions and key partners working to harness market forces for economic inclusion by shifting corporate narratives about…
Flipping the Script: A Moral and Economic Case for Narrative Change
Where do our values and beliefs come from? Answering this question is important for people committed to social change, because these values and beliefs drive our work. Over time, the millions of messages we consume from media, our families, communities,…
Power of Collective Action
At Living Cities, we believe collective action is the framework through which we can achieve change at a systems level. Most recently, we decided to approach narrative change through a collective action framework with the belief that it will help us shift…
Reimagining Our Realities through Storytelling
Racial equity work calls us to imagine new possibilities and different realities from our own because what we need and require does not yet exist – we need to create it, together. It calls us to disrupt mainstream narratives and…