About This Episode:
In our final episode for season 6, Communications Strategist and Wakeman Agency CEO, Vanessa Wakeman, sits in the interviewee chair, sharing her latest insights. In conversation with guest host, Camaro West, Executive Director of Peace is Loud, a nonprofit that uses the power of storytelling to advance gender justice, Vanessa dives into how nonprofits can surface narratives to prompt transformative social change, and why it is essential to ask the question of who should be telling the story. Touching on funding dynamics, narrative resilience, and the needs present in our changing media and information ecosystems, this conversation is sure to get you thinking strategically about communications for your nonprofit in the new year and beyond.
About Camaro West:
Camaro West is a filmmaker and nonprofit leader committed to advancing social justice through her work. She is currently the Executive Director of Peace is Loud, where she leads the organization in its mission to use the power of storytelling to advance gender justice.
About Vanessa Wakeman:
Vanessa Wakeman is the founder and CEO of The Wakeman Agency. She serves as a trusted advisor to nonprofits, foundations, and socially responsible companies globally. An accomplished strategist focused on leveraging communications in pursuit of systemic justice, Vanessa has led engagements across numerous social issues, including healthcare, education, arts, civil rights, philanthropy, social innovation, economic mobility, children’s advocacy, animal rights, environmental, and technology sectors, amongst others.
With more than two decades of experience in strategic communications, Vanessa has worked at the intersection of meaning-making and systems change to help organizations shape powerful narratives that influence public opinion and inspire action. She is an innovator and disruptor who has created numerous communications frameworks to shift the way organizations bring stories to life. Vanessa has been inducted into PRWeek‘s Hall of Femme, noted as one of the 100 Most Influential Black Leaders in New York on City & State‘s Black Power List, and named one of 50 Game Changers of PR by PR News.
In her words…
“I don’t think the nonprofit sector gives itself enough credit for what it knows, what it does, and what it understands—the insights, the lived experiences, the earned experiences. Even when we are fatigued and exhausted, feeling like we are losing, we must never forget just how much power lies in that information.”
“I always say, let’s not leave room for people to interpret. Let’s be very clear on how we need to be talking about an issue, and what language helps to strengthen the narrative.”
“We are seeing narratives being tested in different ways today. They need to be able to withstand, adapt, and respond to harmful narratives and shifting dynamics. So we’re helping organizations think about what they need to do to position their narratives to be more resilient.”
“There is a responsibility in storytelling and narrative development to not go into it thinking that because you have communications expertise or understanding of an issue, that you are the best person to tell that story.”
“I would say to funders that communications is no longer a ‘nice to have’. We have found since 2020 that the role of communications needs to be a priority in how organizations advance their work. It shouldn’t be just project-based, or ‘let’s do this thing for this amount of time’. Funders should reimagine communications as a long-term investment.”
Questions Answered on this Episode:
- In your opinion and experience, who shapes the story?
- Given that so many of us in the nonprofit sector are feeling insecure and powerless, what opportunities do you think there might be for social change narratives to still persist? Is there anything we can learn from other times where we’ve seen ourselves in these contexts of great insecurity, that we can pull from to get us through?
- We’ve seen the ways that narratives have been wielded to try and divide, to try and other. I know you’ve spoken a lot about the importance of language for social change. Can you expand a bit on that, and why you think language is so important?
- How are you thinking about the medium through which a story is being told, and how that influences the actual storytelling or the narratives?
- Talk to me about narrative resilience. That’s a term that you have coined—what exactly does that mean, and why do you think that narrative resilience is important?
Transcript
Vanessa: Hello, and welcome to the Social Change Diaries. I am Vanessa Wakeman. Today, I am joined by Camaro West. Camaro is a filmmaker and nonprofit leader committed to advancing social justice through her work. She is currently the executive director of Peace Is Loud, where she leads the organization in its mission to use the power of storytelling to advance gender justice.
Today, Camaro is serving as our special guest host, and I’m sitting in the guest chair—Eek! As a filmmaker, Camaro is constantly thinking about how stories are told. Since this is our last episode for the season, we thought it could be interesting for Camaro to interview me and get my insights on this season’s theme, Who Shapes The Story? One of the concepts that we’ve discussed is that narrative can be shared through different mediums, and so Camaro’s framing as a filmmaker just makes sense. I’m looking forward to chatting. And with that, I am turning things over to Camaro. Camaro, thank you so much for guest-hosting today.
Camaro: Thank you, Vanessa. I am so excited. This is such an honor to get to interview the interviewer. And so I’m really pleased that you trusted me to ask you some questions today. I’m excited to get into it. My first question for you, since we’re turning the tables, I know that this season you asked your guests to answer the question, “Who shapes the story?” And so I thought it would be appropriate for us to open for me to ask you, in your opinion, who shapes the story?
Vanessa: So you’re getting right into it. Okay, got it, got it. So that’s a great question. And I think I have two answers to that. So the first answer is the story is shaped by the person or people, typically, who have the most power and have the resources to continue to tell the story and build the narrative over and over again, you know, where they have the influence.
The typical answer that I would say has been a reality for a really long time. But what I’d like us to consider when we think about who shapes the story is all of the invisible aspects of the shaping of the story. So when we don’t respond or sort of challenge a narrative or a story, we are in many ways helping to shape and continue that story. When we don’t sort of offer facts and truth, we, you know, in allowing people to believe that what’s being yelled from the rooftops or, you know, shouted through bullhorns, we are in many ways helping to shape those stories. And so I think that regardless of where we are situated within the ecosystem of power, regardless of what resources we have access to, I think everyone has a responsibility in understanding the importance of like speaking up against what isn’t true of educating ourselves to sort of know what is fact versus fiction and being able to participate vigorously and rigorously in the system of how a narrative is shaped and how stories are told. So I guess when you ask who shapes the story, I think my answer today is we all do.
Camaro: Yeah, that’s a really great answer. And you know, one of the things you mentioned a couple of times was power. That really stood out to me because in our social context today, we’re in a space where there are obviously folks who have a great deal of institutional power. Some of those folks wield that power in ways that can make the rest of us feel quite powerless. There’s so much insecurity on so many fronts. So, I’m wondering in that context, where you’re talking about power, but so many of us are feeling insecure and maybe powerless, what opportunities do you think there might be for social change narratives to still persist? In particular, is there anything we can learn from other times where we’ve seen ourselves in these contexts of great insecurity that we can pull from to get us through?
Vanessa: Yeah, I think the first thing for us to acknowledge is the amount of information and the expertise that is inherent in the nonprofit and social change sector. I don’t think that the sector gives itself enough credit for what it knows, what it does, what it understands, the insights, the lived experiences, the earned experiences. I wanna start there and say, all credit due to the sector that has been caring for people and shaping the way our country and our world work effectively with what it does. I think we also need to understand and remember that the sectors have shaped our understanding of the issues, such as the urgent social issues that we should be caring about, and the things that are no longer serving us. I think there is a tremendous role for the sector to play and for us to play, even when we are fatigued and exhausted and feeling like we’re losing, to never forget just how much power lies in that information. We also know that nonprofits are the most trusted institutions in America, and we should be playing into that, that people believe what nonprofits are saying. So now, when there are so many threats and attacks against nonprofits, I know that people’s first response is to want to retreat and be quiet. And I’m not saying that we need to be fighting or throwing the first punch, but I do think that we need to protect and defend, and make sure that we are continuing to let people know what things are important, how this sort of plays a role in our democracy, how it plays a role in how we care for citizens and the people in our communities.
And I think the lessons where we saw this working really well is back to COVID. We saw how narrative played a role in how people understood the urgency of it, the seriousness of the disease, and also how misinformation tried to take it down another path. I think they’re there. We should not feel like we don’t have the opportunity and the resources to be able to tell the stories in the way that they need to be told today.
Camaro: I mean, I’m gonna just admit my bias here. Obviously, I’m a nonprofit leader. So I think that really resonates with me. You’re speaking my language. And I think that language is so important, and you really touched on how narrative is such a tool that can be used. I mean, it can be used towards lots of different ends.
And so we’ve seen the ways that narratives have been wielded to try and divide, to try and other. And I know you’ve spoken a lot about the importance of language for social change. So I’m wondering if you can expand a bit on that and why you think language is so important.
Vanessa: When we think about the idea of communication, right? If we look way back to caveman times when they didn’t necessarily have words, but there was like a grunt or moan or some sort of social interaction that allowed someone to understand, like you agree, you disagree, emotionally we’re happy, we’re sad. We’ve had the evolution where we now have, perfectly crafted, you know, five-letter, 10-letter, seven-letter words to communicate emotion or intent.
We also need to be thinking about the evolution of language. Something that felt really on target five years ago or three years ago may not work today. In the Civil Rights Movement, we went from Negro to African-American, and now we use Black, right? There’s an evolution of all words and terms. I think that we, and certainly me as a communicator, and the sector that is responsible for helping people to understand issues, need to be in constant and regular examination of language to identify whether these words effectively communicate what I want to share with the audience. Does this still highlight humanity and dignity for a particular demographic? I think that language is important to build that connection, the emotional connection that will lead someone to a call to action. But I also think it helps us to understand where we are at a particular time. Like, wow, we’re still here.
So it sort of helps time either stand still or move forward. There are also certain words that have been part of our social lexicon that we are now seeing tensions, like the words democracy, freedom, humanity, and dignity. All of these words are being used and co-opted by others to potentially mean something else. So I think we need to be in remembrance of the intention when it serves us, and also the opportunity to evolve it when we need to. And I know for the nonprofit sector, one of the things I’ve seen with language is sometimes organizations are nervous to challenge the use of a word. It may no longer serve the individual organization, but they don’t want to be the only ones in their issues group that are using different language. We always ask organizations, “Are you prepared to innovate?” It’s okay to say this language no longer serves us, and we want to use this new term, and people can catch up to us or not. Or do you want to wait and follow others? But I think that the conversation needs to be had because what it does, what language also does, offers an identity to a group. So when you’re trying to bring your internal team, your employees together, ensuring everyone has a shared language and an understanding of what that means, creates connection and clarity on the vision and direction of an organization. For your external audiences, it does the same thing. It helps them to understand where you are in the fight, or in the journey, and allows them to be able to represent your issue in a way that offers the framing that you want. I always say, “Let’s not leave room and space for people to interpret it. Let’s be very clear on how we need to be talking about an issue.” That language also helps to strengthen the narrative. I think language is very important, so much so that we, as an organization, The Wakeman Agency, do lexicons for organizations, to provide them with actual language for them to adopt and use within the organization, to talk about their narrative, for us to interrogate which language should be retired or what other people are responding to, what things will help them to strengthen it. I feel like that is a key component of how someone frames an issue, to create a narrative and then create those social connections that we need.
Camaro: I’m curious about, on the topic of evolving storytelling, evolving narratives, I’m curious about whether you think the medium that’s being used to tell the story, how that influences what’s communicated. And I can remember when the written word was supreme. If something was written, you knew it to be true.
And then we’ve evolved to have audio, video, and now we are in a landscape where short-form content is what seems to be reigning supreme. I’m wondering, how are you thinking about the medium through which the story is being told influencing the actual storytelling or the narratives?
Vanessa: That is a fantastic question and one I should have been expecting from a filmmaker to be thinking through that lens. Yes, yes, yes.
I think that as many mediums as someone can offer content and information effectively should be used. And I had a conversation recently where we were talking about the different ways that a narrative can be shared, as you mentioned, no longer just the written word, exhibits, film, social media content, you know, protest, resistance. There are so many ways to do it. I’ve been playing with the term, and I’m not sure if I’m, you know, should even say it here because I haven’t fully landed on it for myself, but something that I’ve been thinking, thinking about is performative art, right? Like, there is an art to the way you tell a story. There’s an art to the way you shape a narrative, and all of the different ways that you’re doing that is a performance, right? We are trying to showcase, highlight, explain, and demonstrate all of the intention with as much emotion and as many evocative elements to allow someone to see themselves in that story, to understand what their potential role can be in that story, and for them ideally to say, “Okay, this is what you want me to do, and I’m now doing that.” So I think that when we have a narrative being written on a website, and it’s like, our mission is to do A, B, and C. And then that is maybe shared on social media with some graphics or an infographic. And then it is told through the voices of the people who are served. And it is maybe in an exhibit in a museum or in a community space for people to see it. And it is shared on a podcast, like finding all of the different ways that the narrative, so many people immediately assume when we talk about narrative that we’re speaking solely about the written word. And I think to clear that up, narrative should be thought about as broadly and widely as possible, all of the ways that you can communicate your ideas. You’re riding around with a bumper sticker on cars or something on your sweatshirt or in communication with people verbally, like I said, visual, trying to maybe find actual objects to express it, as many means as you have access to, only strengthens and gives more power to the narrative. And understanding that in this time in society, where we have people who have such short attention spans and there are so many things that are competing for attention, the more mediums that you are able to express this story in, the more possibilities that you have for someone to grab onto it. I think the old advertising account was that people need to see something maybe 12 or 15 times before they grasp onto it. I’m sure that number has grown exponentially. I would add that it’s not just seeing that sort of message one time or 15 times one way, but expressing it in different ways, probably connects different synapses in the brain to allow people to sort of fully understand and maybe think about and sort of want to take action or sort of demonstrate interest in that particular idea.
Camaro: This is making me think of, you know, on the topic of narrative definitions. Talk to me about narrative resilience because it feels like we’re getting there. That’s a term that you have coined. And so can you talk through what exactly that means and why you think that narrative resilience is important?
Vanessa: Yes. As a communications agency, one of the things that we are constantly being asked to do is help people tell their stories. And 95 % of our client base is in the nonprofit sector. It helps us to tell the story about a social issue. In today’s political climate, when there is so much misinformation and disinformation, it’s difficult for people to know what the truth is and what is just a lie. The lines are very blurred. And so I was trying to think of what people need. We do have narratives that are strong or were strong, and now with this sort of barrage of outside actors, if you will, we’re seeing narratives being tested in different ways. I thought about it and was like, what we need is for narratives to be resilient. They need to be able to withstand, adapt, and respond to harmful narratives and shifting dynamics. If someone is telling a different story that is not factual about a particular social issue, can your narrative withstand that, and people still believe, even with all the other chatter, the facts, right? Many times it’s not happening. So we want to help organizations think about what they need to do to position their narrative to be more resilient. How do you know when it is resilient? How do you sort of test that resiliency and know when it’s time to evolve?
What can we learn from these opposing factors? So many times, people become deflated in feeling like they can’t win. There’s so much information on the other side. People are starting to believe these other stories. We’re just gonna stick with the narrative. And I think that is such a mistake, as we know that there is incredible power in narrative. It is transformative. It allows organizations to really accelerate progress and advance their issue. And so this idea of resilience is simply going deeper into the narratives and the elements and framing of it to know how to make it stronger, right? It’s almost like a hurricane is coming, and you’re asking what do I need to do to prepare for that? It’s the same thing, that resiliency.
Camaro: I’d like to maybe take a slight U-turn back from talking about the stories, the narratives themselves, to who is telling those stories. I work in film, that’s the medium that I work within, and often one of the questions that filmmakers have to grapple with is who has the right to tell this story? You know, when you’re applying for funding, you have to illustrate what your relationship is to this issue and why you are the person to be making a film about this issue. And when you are working with nonprofits and thinking about helping them craft their narratives, how do you think about ownership of narratives in the context of nonprofits and of movements?
Vanessa: Mm-mm, another goodie. We have something called a narrative justice framework. That framework speaks to what is important to us when we are helping an organization shape a narrative. Part of that is centering the stories of the people with the lived experience of understanding the elements and the people who are involved, speaking about the humanity and dignity of people. So I think there’s a responsibility in storytelling and narrative development to not go into it thinking that because you maybe have the communications expertise or an understanding of an issue, that you are the best person to tell it. In our approach, wherever possible, we’re looking to utilize some ethnographic principles and thinking about how we understand the people. Are we using their experience, their language, their sort of needs and desires around this particular issue? Are we allowing any biases to influence how we are thinking about this, which does a disservice to the narrative and the story? And so I think that there are many responsibilities to the person or people who are telling the story. I recognize that in many instances, we are the experts in the room.
And I hope that we are being responsible. And I think we are based on our relationships with our clients and the feedback that we get. But I think it’s a constant sort of conversation that needs to be had around: Am I the right person to tell this story? Because sometimes we aren’t. There have been instances where I’m like, I would love for us to be a part of this project, but I don’t think we’re the right people. Right. And I think that’s really important to know when you can be of service.
I think, to answer your question around who should be telling the story, who has the right to tell the story, I think it is the people who are most willing to put aside their own understanding of an issue for the greater good, right? How do we sort of understand what the greater good is here, and how do we put aside what we may want individually? I’d love for us to structure it this way. As a communicator, I know in my head before we go into any project fully, strategically, I’m thinking about, this is going to advance this more quickly. This is the thing that people need to hear. And so I’m constantly trying to adapt that thinking about wanting the client to get what they want and what they need and making this process as simple as possible, but also allowing people to have agency over the story to feel respected and heard, and to feel like they have an opportunity for their voice to be illuminated and prioritized versus playing to the other sort of competing elements of this narrative development. So I think that the story, the people who are willing to be respectful of the story have the right to tell it. I always want to prioritize the lived experience, and I’d like to say that what we sometimes see is that the people who may be funding the story have very specific ideas about how the story should be told. And I don’t think that the funder, you know, should have the priority here or the veto power. I really do think that it does a disservice to effectively and respectfully share a story.
Camaro: I have so much I want to say in echoing all of that. I mean, to start, knowing when you’re not the person to take something on is so key. I know, at Peace is Loud, we work in documentary film impact, and often people think of impact as being what happens once the film is done and is out into the world, but we think of impact as the entire process of how you make the film, of the relationship between the directors and producers with the participants in the film. And I can say that I think some of our greatest impact has been when we’ve been working with a filmmaker or a filmmaking team in the process of completing a film, and they realize through the process of asking themselves really important questions that, oh, actually, maybe I’m not the person to tell this story. And it’s so powerful when folks can come to that on their own and recognize that. You talked about agency and people being able to exercise agency over their stories. I have a quick follow-up about that because in film, a lot of the actual narrative development happens in the editing process. It happens after all of your film content has been filmed. I’m wondering in communications, if there is any kind of equivalent process of taking the content and then actually shaping the story, who does that?
Vanessa: So I would say the communications folks would be doing that. I think what we’re in the process, part of what we’re doing is trying to understand how people understand an issue and how they’re talking about it. What are the common frames that we see? What is the common language that we see? What is the common emotional response that we see?
And so, in some of that initial writing structure, the first draft of what we see as the narrative, I think that the writing piece is similar. It’s actually editing, right? So I think in communications, there is a form of editing that happens. “This feels really strong.” “Mm, this doesn’t really reflect it.” “Mm, this could belong to this other issue, not quite there, we need a stronger word.” So I think there is 100% editing happening on the communications front of building a narrative. One of the things that is important in that, I have filmmaker friends who are like, you know, the rough cut saw some things, and I need to make some adjustments.
And I know for many of them it’s like, this is great, but I’d love to do it again and again. I think that if you are creative, you’re always critical of your work and your process, and want to edit. I think in the process of developing a narrative, the same sort of editing conversation is happening. The thing that we have that filmmakers don’t have is we often have the luxury of being able to test it, right? So we create it, we edit it, and then we test it. We go out into the world with this messaging, and it’s like, okay, people are really responding to that point. “Wow, that’s the headline.” “Maybe this one feels a little weak,” or “maybe this one requires a little bit more nuance.” We are in constant two-way communication with the audience. For a nonprofit, that could be “what is the sentiment of audiences who read an interview?” “Is it neutral?” “Is it positive? Is it negative?” “How do the people we serve, how do they respond to this new narrative? Do they see themselves? Do they feel like we’ve changed too much?” And so we’re able to get feedback and have a loop, if you will, of editing that allows us at some point to have maybe not what’s perfect, but strong enough, solid enough that it allows an organization to be able to attract the results that they want. And so I think that initial piece of developing and editing is similar, but then we get that sort of testing opportunity.
Camaro: Right, having gone through that process probably numerous times, can you think about a moment or an example where shifting a narrative successfully changed the direction of an issue or of a campaign?
Vanessa: There are many, but probably the one that everyone is most familiar with, I’m going to say the pandemic. When the pandemic first happened, whenever the stories came out of China, like a person sick here, a person sick here, we knew something was happening, but because most of us had never experienced a pandemic or anything at that level, it really was like business as usual. The day went on, and it took some time. But what happened is once people, once the narrative was built, even though there was the tension between fact and misinformation, what we saw happen was a collective global threat, right? So people saw that this is happening everywhere. We saw the emotional sort of storytelling. So storytelling was paramount, even when that wasn’t the intention. We saw news reporters reporting on first responders and how they were working these long shifts. We saw, going back to one of the questions you asked previously, about the different ways to tell a narrative. We saw first responders who were wearing their masks all day long. We saw the imprints on their faces, right? That was a visual to support the narrative. We saw how misinformation had people confused. I’m not wearing a mask anymore. It represents, you know, liberal people or people who are not my people.
It showed some holes in the idea of identity and how people saw themselves culturally. We saw how that particular pandemic, that sort of issue, highlighted for people the muscle memory of trust in Black and Brown communities, especially for Black people, and how they didn’t trust the medical profession. There was a lot of vaccine hesitancy, and that was tied to the Tuskegee experiment. It showed that we haven’t forgotten that. So that particular issue brought up all of the good and the bad of a narrative and how to tell a story. We worked with an organization that was a coalition of 120 Black churches, helping to offer vaccine education and also address vaccine hesitancy and resistance. 120 Black churches across 14 states, which meant that there was no consistency in being able to use just one singular narrative or messaging. We had some rural communities in Georgia. We had urban communities in LA. We had New York, I think Detroit. And so having to really understand the people, like what drove them? You know, what would happen if we went into a barbershop and had a conversation in New York versus a barbershop in LA? What happens when people go to their local church? How are they understanding this issue? So that was a sad and challenging, but also a really beautiful opportunity to understand the power of narrative. Once we started to, as a collective, when the world sort of understood what was happening, we saw how people came together, right? There were stories about people joining Zoom. That’s when all the Zoom parties started happening. That’s when we saw animals, improved traffic patterns, and air quality, all of these things. That particular period in time gave us a way to talk about issues that connected people around a narrative of this idea of belonging, this idea of safety, of health disparities, and inequity. And so I think that that was one of the most, probably one of the most powerful narrative historic moments of our lifetime.
Camaro: Yes, yes. For me, it also illustrates the way that narrative interacts with culture, and also, as you pointed out correctly, sometimes can influence culture. But to do that, the narratives have to be far-reaching enough to be able to reach a critical mass of people to be able to contribute to those cultural shifts. Yeah.
Vanessa: Yes, I agree.
Camaro: I want to end talking about money because, as you know, one of the through lines in our conversation today is that the people who are the closest to the issues need to have the agency to tell their own stories.
Vanessa: That’s one of my favorites!
Camaro: And also, often those people are not the same people who have access to the resources, whether that’s financial resources, institutional resources, to be able to create that far-reaching impact on their own. A lot of us who work in nonprofits are really relying on philanthropy and philanthropic support to enable us to build up the infrastructure to be able to really bolster our narrative work.
We’re seeing the ways in which philanthropy has really gone through some significant changes over the last 10 years. There’s realignment happening with some big philanthropists in terms of what their funding priorities are. There are others who are really doubling down and committing to trust-based philanthropy, which kudos applause all of that. It’s so important and really linking that trust-based philanthropy with building community power.
And so I’m wondering if you had the ear, if you were sitting down for coffee with one of these major philanthropic actors, what would you want them to know about funding communications in the current landscape?
Vanessa: Okay, tap, tap. This is my PSA. Is everyone listening? I would say to funders that communications is no longer a nice-to-have. We have found since 2020 that the role of communications continues to be or needs to be a priority in how organizations advance their work. When people, sometimes funders, nonprofits themselves, are thinking about communications, it is more often than not, or more often than I would like, a project-based, or a
“Let’s do this thing for this amount of time,” or “We have this one thing we’d like to do.” I would like funders to reimagine communications as a long-term investment. There are continual attacks on social issues; we’re seeing that live today. We’re seeing the spectrum of all of the issues. We need to be able to create narrative, communications infrastructure that allows organizations to be prepared, to proactively be thinking about what they want to talk about, how they want to position their work, and be prepared for these attacks. They have the resources, the capacity, and the expertise available to them to navigate these peaks and valleys. The other thing that we have been working on is that we are seeing a rise in media properties that are more conservative.
The reason why so much misinformation is considered fact and truth is because it’s being repeated across many different channels and platforms. We need nonprofits to have the communications capacity to be able to tell their stories consistently. One of the things we’re working on is brand journalism. Organizations using journalists in-house, and being able to go out into communities and advance the stories, and not just tell the story like “this is the issue,” but being able to consider the needs of the audience and incorporating that into how stories are told so that again, people are seen. We want funders to think about communications as a way to really advance the agenda of the mission, right? You can have spectacular programs and stellar outcomes, but you also need to marry that with communications. What is the language that we are using? What is the story that we’re telling? How are we getting that story out? How are we helping people to understand how they can see themselves in those stories?
Do we have the foresight to be able to prepare for what’s coming? Nonprofits, as I said earlier, have so much information. They understand this landscape. They are the experts. Let’s give them access to the expert resources that are needed for them to really be in those thought leadership positions to share their thinking and what they’re seeing, because that’s how we advance change, right? We need to be investing in the system so that we can continue to solve problems. When communications becomes secondary or an afterthought, it doesn’t offer the level of impact that organizations need to be able to create the society that we all deserve and want.
Camaro: Here, here. And if I could add one small thing, if I were in that meeting with you, I would just amplify that it is such a long game. The days of funding a project and then a year later wanting a report showing how that funding has contributed to these broad-reaching world-changing impacts are just not realistic.
If we think about some of those successful culture-shaping narratives, they have been decades in the making and decades of investment and time. Unfortunately, those have been narratives that have really stoked division. And I think that philanthropy also needs to understand that if we do want to see, as you said, the world, to create the world we all want to live in, that same long-term investment needs to happen to be able to sustain that. We’ve got to match, you know? And so that would be my little pulpit as well.
Vanessa: Yes, I am plus oneing that. And then it’s the holiday time. If Santa was putting something under the Wakeman tree from a funder, I would say, think about funding for five to seven years, like experimental. Some of the conversations we’re having now, which I’m very excited about, is this idea of experimentation.
This is what we know will be valuable to this community, or these are the outcomes that the community wants. How can we experiment with communications to make that happen? So we have an innovation lab where we’re kicking the tires. No, we know, we’ve blown up the conference room, like those kinds of things. Really wanting to take risks and try different things in the name of accelerating progress. If we continue to do the same things over and over, we can only expect the same results. And so this is an interesting time to think about long-term investment. So again, Ford, you know, and all the others who are listening, like a five to seven year, you know, investment. You know where to find us; we’re not running away. Let’s do this.
Camaro: Thank you so much. This has been such a great conversation. I’m so grateful that you allowed me to sit in your interviewer’s chair today. This has been so lovely.
Vanessa: Well, you are always welcome to sit in the chair. I welcome you anytime. I look forward to interviewing you in the near future. And yes, that is that. I hope that people feel somewhat satisfied with what I shared today and understand that we’re consistently and continually thinking about communications and wanting to serve organizations. If I were to summarize some of what I shared here today, it is really to double down on the narrative and invest in communications. It’s a process, right? So it’s not a one-and-done. Prepare yourself and align yourself with the resources needed to be able to do this properly.
So, to all of the funders listening or to their grantee partners who want to forward this episode to their funders, we need to look at long-term investment in communications. I would be happy to have conversations about what this can look like and potential outcomes. Let’s do it.