This toolkit is designed for changemakers, advocates, and leaders working to address housing in California. We know that shifting long-entrenched narratives is key for the changes necessary to make sure that all Californians have a safe and stable home.
The resources here – including tips, tools, templates and tested messages – are designed to support your work over the short and long term. It’s a place to dive deep into narrative strategy, with insights from leaders in the critical field of shifting how people think and feel about issues in order to spark meaningful and measurable change.
The results of rigorous testing on frames, messages, and audience segments are outlined here to incorporate into how you communicate with the public, your community, and with policymakers. Advocates are encouraged to work with the narrative frame and message to make them your own, including by adapting the language for the audiences you work with.
Choose your own adventure as you utilize these resources on this site, and it will have the most impact when you keep coming back to it. This toolkit is something to read through, revisit, a place to grab messaging for an op-ed or fact sheet on a tight deadline. And then return to it again.
A sample of ways to use this toolkit:
- Share it with your colleagues and the coalition partners you work with frequently, and schedule time to talk through new ways to incorporate narrative strategy in your work.
- Create or update message guidelines for your organization based on the results of this message research.
- Build narrative strategy into your organization or project strategic plan using the narrative planning worksheet as a starting place.
- Identify where narrative falls in your strategic communications plan. Make it explicit and set benchmarks.
