Yeah that’s what I like to hear it is great to be here with you at Frank at what appears to be the Disneyland Haunted Mansion set I love Disneyland so it’s all good hopefully my presentation won’t be too scary so I want to talk to you about some of what we have learned at the opportunity agenda about communicating persuasively on issues of social justice in ways that bring in the skeptics but also empower and activate the base because we all know we have to do both of those things in order to move forward and so I’m going to give you some of what we’ve learned and up I’m going to tell you where you can find more of our free resources how many of you know the opportunity agenda have worked with us receive our stuff good good all right well we’ll be spamming the rest of you shortly and whoops we’re not don’t seem to be moving forward we’ll try it again I’m pushing the big green button all right okay so in our work what we found is that there are typically four types of social justice communications that we all need to work with one is branding so branding is important it’s who we are we need it for power building and fundraising and membership development but it’s only one type of communication a second is campaign communications and I know many of you in the room work on those they tend to be 50% plus one type communications they tend to be in a relatively short period of time so maybe three months maybe 18 months maybe you know a few hours but they tend to use short term messaging a third kind of crisis communication so if you’re lucky you won’t have to deal with crisis communications but if your work is important and impactful you will have to deal with crisis communication so on the one hand think about Planned Parenthood they probably have the best crisis communications operation in the social justice world on the other hand how many of you remember acorn right you credibly important impactful community organizing network that is out of business in part because of unfair attacks in part because some mistakes they made but largely in my view because they did not have a crisis communications operation that could meet the moment that they found themselves in most importantly however we believe is the long-term moving of hearts and minds and we think it’s most important because if you get that right if you get your core story that moves people overtime then the rest of those types of communications become much easier so we’re gonna be talking mostly about that type of communication so here’s a quiz I want you all to shout out the answer there are no wrong answers actually there are wrong answers but but shout it out anyway take a risk so if I said to you computer plus creative plus genius what brand okay so nobody said gateway right all right sorry gateway all right if I said to you car plus safe what brand although this is always a Subaru in the house for some reason yeah no Volvo most people say Volvo but how do you know the answer to those questions right you probably don’t know the safety ratings on a Volvo there’s no way that I know of quantifying the creative genius of Apple but these are stories that have been told to you over and over and over again from lots of in lots of different forms from different folks and they’re rooted in shared values and identity I want to if I’m a parent which I am now I want a car that’s safe I can’t afford a Volvo but you know be great to have a car that’s safe I want to be a creative genius and known that way and so here’s a counter example how many of you know this pancake brand yeah kay are you ZTE a ste az who is the marketing genius who named their brand crusty ass pancakes you know my mother-in-law said Allen no it’s Krusty’s right just didn’t really matter this is a bad name for pancake so book but why am I telling you this you may wonder because a lot of us when we talk about social justice we are selling crusty-ass pancakes we are speaking in a language that only five people understand we are not using branding or campaign communications or the long term moving of hearts and minds and so one of the things I want you to leave from this next 9 minutes and 15 seconds is don’t sell crust es pancakes all right so so what does that mean we’re gonna look at some of the lessons scuse me some of the lessons we’ve learned at the opportunity agenda on how to tell stories and deliver messages and narratives that stick and pull people in they’re actually ten lessons but you know time is short so you’re only gonna get seven I’ll tell you where to get the rest first and I think most importantly is leading with shared values so in in our work as changemakers often we like to lead with policies and data and facts and so you know you go home for Thanksgiving and your uncle says what are you working on and you say well the rule on affirmatively furthering fair housing because when we look at that right you’ve lost him he’s already talking to your cousin because it’s not something that he can connect to so often the next level up is issues so I you know I’m working on housing or education and the like people know what you’re talking about but they’re bringing their own story to that conversation of the teacher they loved or the teachers union they hate or love or love to hate you’re not starting from scratch with them so nine times out of ten you’re gonna want to lead with shared values the values you share with your audience so you know you said your uncle well I believe that all kids deserve an opportunity to achieve their dreams and our society is better when we do that but we’re not accomplishing that so let me talk to you about the education work I’m doing and the specific policies does that make sense different conversation okay so I want to give you some quick examples of this this is Brian Stevenson who I’m sure all of you either know or know of talking about race on the death penalty in two different ways and so since time is short I’m going to jump right into the first one in the united states we are struggling with capital punishment and its implementation short quick legal history in 1972 the United States Supreme Court struck down the death penalty after recognizing that it was being applied in an arbitrary manner the court in 72 noted that 87% of the people executed for the crime of rape were black men convicted of raping white women 100% of the people executed in the United States between 1930 and 1972 for the crime of rape were executed for offenses involving victims who were white okay even though so if you are an opponent of the death penalty compelling get your blood boiling but if you are on the fence probably not the story that is going to pull you in so let’s talk look look at a different way that Brian delivered these same facts scholars stood up after the presentation and said well you know it’s deeply troubling to hear what you’re talking about so we don’t have the death penalty in Germany of course we can never have the death penalty in Germany and the move not very quiet and this woman said there’s no way with our history we could ever engage in the systematic killing of human beings it would be unconscionable for us to an attentional deliberate way set about executing people I thought about that what would it feel like to be living in a world where the nation-state of Germany was executing people especially if they were disproportionately Jewish I couldn’t bear it okay so what’s Brian doing he’s not saying that Jim Crow South is exactly like the Holocaust that’s not accurate and it would certainly peel off some folks who would have a problem with that he’s reminding us of the value of equal justice but no matter what somebody has been accused ever convicted of it’s about our values as a nation and when we discriminate in the death penalty for example we’re violating our own values so leading with values second groups second is telling a systemic story so people love to hear individual human stories report especially love that but we also know from research by folks like Shonto Iyengar that individual stories often drive your audience to an individual cause and an individual solution right if we just had more people like them with true grit we would wouldn’t have this problem so bless you so finding ways to tell a systemic story while continuing to tell a human story one of those ways is to use enlightened insiders people who because of their position see lots of human stories compelling human stories but also see the big picture and another is empowered change agents effected change agents these are folks Rosa Parks Jose Antonio Vargas Gabby Giffords who have their own story to tell they are directly affected but their activism their solution is systemic and it leads people to systemic causes and solutions make sense ok next anybody notice I skipped one okay because time is short all right next is is emphasize solutions so one of our expressions that the opportunity agenda is there’s a reason why Martin Luther King Jr’s greatest speech was not called I have a complaint right we’re advocates we forget that all the time if you don’t tell people what you’re for you’re just telling me another depressing story I can’t do anything about right solution solution solutions so you’re going to touch on the problem but you’re going to really be about the solution because that’s what’s going to pull your folks in and fight issue fatigue 5 is obstacles before outcomes this is especially important with issues of race and identity often we jump right to the unequal outcomes that we see in society like you know black unemployment being twice white unemployment now for those of us who are social justice leaders that proves discrimination to us right or unfairness but for a lot of undecideds what is it proved right black folks are lazy they’re not working as hard they’ve you know culture all those stereotypes come in so make sure that first you explain the unequal obstacles that people have different groups different situations are facing and then provide the unequal outcome right so that folks have a context and a path a narrative that connects with values and connects with specific solutions next is a positive role for government so you remember Newman from from Seinfeld postal worker but then think about how awesome the postal workers and the post office actually are right it’s easy to go to to be all about the negatives of government especially right now but most of the solutions we want require a positive role for government and so you have to be able to tell the story about the people who are making decisions with which we disagree and the positive role that government can and should play in expanding opportunity making and enforcing fair rules keeping all of us safe and some of those things I should say are actually enjoy wide support so even amongst folks who are disappointed with our government they understand and support these positive roles and they want to see more of them and so the final lesson I’m going to share with you in the form of a story which is that my when my older daughter was going to high school starting high school we went to an event welcome to the high school the principal spoke and she was great and the the guidance counselor had guidance counselor’s spoke and he did a good job and then the head of security spoke and she said you know if you believe the rumors you would believe that this high school is an open-air drug market but believe me it’s not an open-air drug market so once again not an open-air drug market right so at this point my wife and I are in fetal position oh my god we’re sending our daughter to an open-air drug market right so and then she went on to tell us about how it wasn’t right I couldn’t tell you a single fact that she said and I did it hadn’t even heard the rumor that it was an open-air drug market which it kind of is I have to say so but what’s the point here instead of repeating the myths and falsehoods and sometimes outright lies from our opponents we need to tell our affirmative story right instead of saying you may have heard immigrants don’t pay taxes but let me explain to you how they do how about let me talk to you about how immigrants are a part of us how we are together contributing to a stronger society how many immigrants are paying taxes that if they’re undocumented they will never benefit from like Social Security taxes and they’re creating jobs and they’re starting businesses and they are working with us to build stronger communities that’s a different story that doesn’t repeat the lie or the falsehood that’s underlying it so you want to tell an affirmative story so what I’ll leave you with is the opportunity agenda and a invitation to check us out all of our social justice communications materials are free they’re 99 percent of them except the top secret ones are on our website and you can email me for the top secret ones or or direct tweet me I and one of the things that we do is rapid response so when something good or bad happens out in the world usually within an hour we’re letting you know this thing has happened here’s our recommendation on how to talk about it in a way that will be compelling so with that I will leave you thank you so much for the phenomenal work that you’re doing and do check after [Music]