Releasing the Reframing Implementation Guide
February 7, 2019You’ve been patiently waiting, and we’re delivering! In order to help the National Reframing Network implement the Building Well-Being Narrative most effectively, this week we released the much-anticipated Implementation Guide. The National Reframing Initiative’s new practical and accessible online implementation guide features user-friendly recommendations, troubleshooting strategies, tips, and real-world examples for each of the four steps of the reframing process. These phases include: Building the Case for Reframing, Implementing the Frame, Sustaining Reframing, and Engaging the Community. Each module also compiles tools and resources at the end of the tutorial so you have them all at your fingertips.
We’ve pulled together the best content from our newsletters and foundational resources like FrameWorks Institute’s toolkit around key implementation concerns and questions so you have a centralized resource to consult as you begin or continue your reframing journey. This is a dynamic resource—it will be continuously updated from our blog posts, particularly the consolidated tools and resources at each module’s conclusion.
Visit the following four modules for easy-to-use recommendations to adopt and institutionalize reframing at your human service organization. In each module, we also offer partner examples of strategies and reframed communications for you to use as models.
- Building the Case for Reframing – Learn how to gain support for reframing from key stakeholders, such as your CEO, board, and external partners. Module 1 walks you through how to craft a clear, concise pitch that demonstrates reframing’s success and significance by explaining the key points of the problem, cause and solution, as well as planning next steps.
- Implementing the Frame – Learn how to do a thorough review and revision of communications and materials. Module 2 provides examples and practical strategies for incorporating FrameWorks’ Building Well-Being Narrative recommendations into your core organizational (e.g., About Us language, Mission Statements), advocacy (e.g., policy agendas and position statements), and media (e.g., traditional and social) communications.
- Sustaining Reframing – Learn how to sustain reframing over the long term by establishing it as the lens through which to make communications, development, and policy decisions across your organization. Module 3 helps you create a standardized and comprehensive structure for embedding reframing into your procedures with examples such as brand guidelines, internal protocols, and strategy documents. It also addresses fundraising around reframing.
- Engaging the Community – Learn how to capitalize on the power and efficiencies of coalitions for advocacy objectives with reframing, and achieve the benefits of formal collaboration. Module 4 teaches you strategies for implementing reframing community-wide through task forces and membership organizations, as well as logistical best practices.
Please take a look and utilize some (or all) of the strategies provided. We hope you will find the Implementation Guide useful and look forward to your feedback. Email any questions, comments or tips to Bridget Gavaghan, National Reframing Initiative Director.
SPOTLIGHT: FrameWorks Institute’s Price Talks with Nonprofit Quarterly
In “Reframing Narratives, Resetting Reality: A Conversation with Mackenzie Price of the FrameWorks Institute,” a January 28, 2019 Nonprofit Quarterly post, Mackenzie Price notes that a narrative “allows all of us to see how the ways we use language to talk about our work, our lives, or our beliefs position people while we are constructing reality and conveying information.” FrameWorks’ Price observes that narratives are constantly occurring and “every time you interrupt a false narrative…you are putting something into a consciousness.” Changing dominant narratives is a long-term effort, however. Price advises that repetition by using “categories of values, examples, messengers, and stories” identified by framing research is key to maintaining reframed narratives about issues.