In the March 9 newsletter, we talked about how right now the public is primed to understand issues and process information through the “separate fates” cultural model, the belief that what happens to an individual only affects that individual and their immediate circle. This perspective masks the collective benefits of human services, making it harder […]

Human service organizations have long relied on telling stories of personal success or struggle to convey the impact and importance of a service or policy. We often include these examples in our fundraising appeals, advocacy campaigns, and media outreach with the goal of inspiring the public’s engagement and support. But we’ve learned through our partnership […]

In the last newsletter, we talked about the cultural models that are dominating public thinking as a result of the current national discourse. Cultural models are “deeply held understandings that motivate thought and behavior in largely unconscious and automatic ways.” One of the cultural models that the FrameWorks Institute identified as being easily activated for […]

The campaign-dominated national dialogue of 2016 continues to impact nonprofits in unhelpful ways, according to a recent article in the Nonprofit Quarterly by Nat Kendall-Taylor and Susan Nall Bales of the FrameWorks Institute. In “Your Nonprofit’s Role in Reframing the Post-Election Discourse,” Kendall-Taylor and Nall Bales provide a comprehensive analysis of the cultural models that […]

This time of year finds the human service sector focused on engaging the public around budget decisions taking place in statehouses and in Washington, DC. We all know that rallying public support for budget priorities can be tricky. Luckily, research from the FrameWorks Institute can help us be more intentional in how we go about […]