Anyone besides me notice how the narrative change industry, and yes, it has become an industry, makes narrative change way more complicated than it needs to be? By the time you are on page four or five of the PDF, your eyes are watering because it is packed with so much information that it actually complicates the whole point. Most of these PDFs do not even model the simple messaging they tell others to use. And honestly, the fact that they rely on PDFs as their main communication tool shows they do not understand how to reach people today. Maybe these documents are meant for other narrative change professionals, because your average nonprofit trying to reach a real audience will never use most of it.
Narrative change is not hard. It really is not. You tell a good story that resonates with a specific audience to shift a paradigm.
There are two kinds of narrative change work, and it is important to separate them.
The first is Cultural Narrative Work. This is ongoing, constant, and hard to measure, but it is the most important. This is the kind of work right-wing philanthropy funds at scale. The homeless sector still struggles to understand Cultural Narrative Work, yet this is where public attitudes are actually shaped. When Joe Rogan tells millions of people to kill homeless people, no one measures outcomes. When Doctor Drew tells his audience the affordable housing crisis is a hoax, no one measures outcomes. Millions of harmful pieces of content go out every day shaping how people think, fear, and talk about homelessness. None of that is measured, but it has huge impact.
The second type is Campaign Narrative Work. This is when you want a specific audience to take a specific action. It is shorter-term, measurable, and tied to an outcome. Both types matter. The problem is that the homeless sector, and the nonprofit marketing firms hired to run many communication strategies, often confuse email acquisition or other cookie-cutter tactics that generate billable hours with narrative work. That is not narrative work. It never was.
Look at YouTubers and content creators. They understand how to reach people. They understand storytelling, engagement, audience building, and real-time response. They listen. They adjust. If they do not, they disappear. Meanwhile, the homeless sector often overcomplicates everything or relies on outdated strategies that don’t work anymore, even though they keep everyone busy; busywork doesn’t create impact.
Every narrative change PDF says no single person or organization can shift a narrative alone. They are right. It has to be coordinated across the sector. But that is the hardest part. Look at the groups pushing criminalization. Their messaging is simple, coordinated, and perfectly aligned with their audience’s fears and beliefs. I do not see that kind of coordination happening in the homeless sector anytime soon. It is possible, but someone has to champion real collaboration, and philanthropy could play that role. I just do not see it happening right now.
The Best Narrative Change Checklist
Who do you want to reach?
Every narrative, cultural or campaign, starts with knowing your audience.
What shift are you trying to create?
For campaign work, this can be a clear action.
For cultural work, this can be a change in belief, attitude, or understanding.
Where do they spend their time online?
Different demographics use different media channels, and every platform has its own culture.
How can stories move them?
Stories must connect emotionally and feel relevant to the audience’s worldview.
Are you listening to what they believe right now?
You cannot shift a narrative if you do not understand where people actually are.
Are you paying attention to culture?
Cultural Narrative Work only works when you understand the cultural forces shaping beliefs.
Are you flexible enough to adjust when the audience responds?
Creators do this daily. Nonprofits must learn to respond, adapt, and evolve.
Are you repeating the message often enough for people to absorb it?
Frequency matters. A narrative becomes true to people when they hear it again and again.
Do you have a path to reach people at scale?
Cultural and campaign narratives both require reach. A great story no one sees changes nothing.
Listening is critical. Right now, support is growing for forced treatment and even for the unthinkable, internment-style encampments. The opposition to evidence-based solutions keeps pushing the idea that homeless people need to be held accountable. They keep claiming addiction is the cause of homelessness. We know that is not true. Most people who use drugs will never experience homelessness. Homelessness is caused by the affordable housing crisis.
If we listened to the public, we would understand why these harmful ideas are growing. When we talk about supportive housing, we have failed to explain that housing comes with treatment and services. We have not connected the dots for people. Because we did not listen and adjust our messaging, the public filled in the gaps with fear-based narratives. We are now living the consequences.
Like a coach looking at the other team, we should be adjusting our playbook based on their messaging. But we are not. Nonprofits are being told that research shows overwhelming public support for supportive housing. That is simply not the reality on the ground. They are told to share more supportive housing stories, but we have been doing that for more than a decade, and it has not shifted public opinion at scale.
Listen to the stories being told around you. Tell authentic stories that resonate. Build audiences so your stories actually spread. Pay attention to how people communicate today. Collaborate whenever possible. That is how you change the narrative.
At Invisible People, we focus on telling stories that actually resonate with people. Most nonprofits create video content that highlights their own work, usually with interviews of executive staff, and it ends up being something they play at a fundraising gala. Whenever I teach storytelling workshops, I ask nonprofit employees if they even watch the videos their organizations produce. The room always laughs. That means they do not.
Invisible People has produced 27 documentaries in the last few years. Millions of people watch our content because we tell authentic stories of homelessness and the people living through it. We show success stories, like the woman we followed from her tent to her home, to demonstrate through visuals and narrative that the only permanent solution to homeless encampments is housing. If we had the resources, we would produce one of these videos every week. The challenge is that nonprofits want to tell stories that make them the hero, instead of telling stories that resonate with the public and show both the crisis and the solutions through one person’s experience.
The nonprofit sector needs a cultural shift in how we tell stories. I never see this explained in any narrative change strategy PDF. And a lot of the problem comes from marketing agencies that keep pushing outdated communication strategies because they generate billable income.
If you want people to understand supportive housing, or the homelessness crisis, or any system-level issue, you have to tell it through a personal story. This is how people connect. This is how they feel the impact. This is how they learn.
Nicholas Kristof explained this perfectly years ago in his piece, “Save the Darfur Puppy,” and the lesson has not changed. His article is one of the best explanations for why individual stories move people, while big numbers and abstract policy arguments rarely do.
This is why we focus on individual stories at Invisible People. It is also why nonprofits must rethink how they communicate. If you want your audience to care, you have to tell stories that show the human experience behind the crisis. It is not complicated.