The Toolkit
Catalyzing
Narratives that move people to act need to reach your audience through voices they trust and in places they are. In the Crafting phase, you developed a narrative and stories your audience can recognize themselves in. In this phase, you bring those stories to your audience, test what works, and adjust based on what you learn.
This phase has four steps:
1. Decide who can credibly communicate the narrative
Identify specific people, organisations, or networks that your audience is likely to listen to and that can carry your narrative.
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2. Determine how the narrative reaches your audience
Map how a person moves from their current view to a new way of seeing and acting across real situations in their life.
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3. Expand beyond your usual base
Identify partners outside your usual network who are able to reach audiences you cannot.
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4. Test whether your approach is working
Turn your assumptions about what will motivate your audience into small, testable experiments.
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Where to go from here:
If the situation does not change, go back to Probing to check whether you understand what drives the current situation and where you can intervene.
If people do not see a role for themselves, go back to Reimagining to clarify the future you are working toward and how people are part of it.
If people do not connect with your narrative, go back to Crafting to make it clearer, more relevant, and grounded in what matters to your audience.
If people do not see or hear your narrative, go back to steps 1 to 3 of this phase to revisit who carries the message, where it shows up, and how it reaches different audiences.
This toolkit grows through use — share what you learned or get in touch.
Sources: Marshall Ganz, Somers, Lakoff, Haidt