Issue: Principles & Processes

When times are tough, we stick together. In pandemics or power outages, after hurricanes or snow storms, we do better when we care for one another. No matter our race, income, zip code, faith, or gender, we want our families to be healthy and thrive for generations to come.
For as long as we can remember, a handful of politicians in our country have tried to divide us and lie about the damage to our climate and communities. They want to point fingers, assign blame, and turn us against each other while oil companies profit off of polluting our air, land, and water. Black, brown, or white, Indigenous, or immigrant – we aren’t going to fall for it.
The record-breaking number of voters in the 2020 election signals the growing wave of people who are ready and willing to shape the direction of our nation. On climate, a large majority of the American public understands climate change is happening and that we must do something about it – a prerequisite to building a successful, winning movement*.The greatest opportunity and challenge ahead of us is translating that momentum and support into widespread action for movement solutions. Because voting isn’t the end of engagement and public opinion data is merely statistics if not translated into sustained action.
The climate crisis will continue to shape our lives and political landscape. In these moments of crisis (think about the COVID-19 pandemic for example), new narratives, new policies, and new social behaviors are established. This is why how we act and what we say in these moments is critical because there’s a small window of persuasion before people’s attention moves on.
Race Class Narrative is an empirically-tested narrative framework that breaks through the noise of our opposition, unites people across races, backgrounds, and genders, and communicates solutions in a way that makes them obvious, achievable, and worth fighting for.
Thank you to Tinselyn Simms and Eleonore Wesserle of We Make the Future, Anthony Torres of ASO Communications, and the whole team at 100% MN for being bold practitioners of Race Class Narrative (+ Race Class Gender Narrative) and contributing to this insight.

How do we build the power to win? The Lab is constantly working to uncover and share what works (and doesn’t) to help build grassroots power and win equitable solutions through evidence-based advocacy. A common request we receive is for rigorous best practices to grow people power. Last year, the Lab finalized our research vision and research agenda and solicited research project ideas from the Lab community, rooted in how to improve organizing and mobilizing, and grounded in a common conceptual framework.
Today we share results from these six collaborative research projects, and our guidance for your recruitment and mobilizing work, based on the evidence we gathered together.