Introducing a Four-Part Masterclass in Narrative Change Grantmaking
Are you a philanthropic leader who yearns to build narrative power for justice and pluralist culture? Do you have questions about the why, what, and how of pop culture narrative change strategies? Do you want to level up your narrative change grantmaking?
Welcome to Imagination Requested, a four-part video masterclass for grantmakers and donors who want to understand how best to support your field partners to transform the toxic narrative waters in the US into a thriving narrative ocean that inspires millions of people to co-create a just and pluralist society where everyone belongs. Imagination Requested features the foundational frameworks and strategies developed and used by the Pop Culture Collaborative to design, test and evaluate our resourcing of the pop culture narrative change field.
In this video series, you’ll learn directly from the Pop Culture Collaborative’s leadership team of seasoned cultural strategists, philanthropic partners, and field experts. The series explores four topics:
- Narrative systems design, the responsive narrative framework at the heart of the Collaborative grantmaking strategies to transform narrative oceans;
- Case examples of narrative and culture change processes that transformed the beliefs, behaviors and mindsets of millions of Americans;
- Narrative infrastructure investment areas that enable philanthropic leaders to strategically support a field to build the narrative power that makes narrative immersion possible
- Narrative change evaluation, including a new learning and impact evaluation framework for field members and funders.
Each video in this course is accompanied by learning questions and essential reading materials.
Imagination Requested is a project of ENTERTAIN CHANGE: Philanthropy, a community of practice and learning for grantmakers and donors working to strategically resource and strengthen the field ecosystem, narrative and cultural strategies, and coordinated work of pop culture for social change field; and philanthropic allies dedicated to exploring and investing in the broader field of narrative change.
Your Instructors
Join Pop Culture Collaborative CEO, Bridgit Antoinette Evans, and Chief Strategy Officer, Tracy Van Slyke, as they guide you through four learning modules in which they break down concepts, frameworks, and real-world examples of narrative power building in action and the implications for philanthropic strategies.
Bridgit Antoinette Evans is widely recognized as one of the foremost thought leaders in the culture change strategy field. A professional artist and strategist, she has dedicated her career to the relentless investigation of the potential of artists to drive cultural change in society. Read more.
Through her work at the intersection of media and movement building for the last 17 years, Tracy has worked with a cross-sector of content producers, social justice organizers and philanthropic leaders to help them develop the profound storytelling and audiences experiences that can catalyze mass audiences for social change. Read more.
Course Overview
LESSON 1: NARRATIVE OCEANS
In our first lesson, you’ll learn about the importance of transforming toxic narrative waters and seeding healthy narrative oceans through the design and activation of narrative systems, the strategic framework at the heart of the Collaborative’s strategy to support the pop culture narrative change field to achieve narrative immersion at scale.
Join Bridgit as she unpacks the six core components of a narrative system that work together to activate narrative networks, achieve narrative immersion, and accelerate the pace of cultural change.
LESSON 2: A NARRATIVE SYSTEMS CASE STUDY
In this lesson, Bridgit invites you to dive into two powerful case examples of how pop culture strategies and a narrative systems approach work together to make transformative culture change possible: the popularization of bottled water and the #WaterisLife movement.
Through an exploration of corporate brand strategy, and narrative and cultural organizing by Indigenous water warriors and climate justice activists, you’ll learn how narrative systems can create desire for something new, demand for change — and ultimately, transformation in the beliefs and behaviors for millions of people.
LESSON 3: NARRATIVE INFRASTRUCTURE
In our third lesson, Tracy will introduce you to the six key narrative infrastructure investment areas that enable you to robustly support a field to build the narrative power that makes narrative immersion possible.
In addition, listen in to intimate discussions with pathbreaking field partners as they share actionable insights and critical lessons from their work to build narrative infrastructure, covering topics such: as narrative research and experimentation, ecosystem building, pipeline programs, industry power and more.
Special guests include: Ai-jen Poo of the National Domestic Workers Alliance and co-founder of Caring Across Generations; Imara Jones, Journalist and Founder of TransLash Media; and Maha Chehlaoui, Think Tank for Inclusion and Equity.
LESSON 4: NARRATIVE EVALUATION
In our final episode, you’ll learn about common questions and misconceptions that arise for funders who are assessing narrative change impact and evaluation. You’ll also get a sneak peek into INCITE — the new field and funder impact learning and evaluation framework for the pop culture narrative change field, developed by the Pop Culture Collaborative with USC Norman Lear Center to support both practitioners and funders in tracking, evaluating and synchronizing their narrative impacts over time.
Special guests include: Icela Pelayo (W.K. Kellogg Foundation), Adey Fisseha (Unbound Philanthropy), Alvin Starks (Open Society Foundations), and Dimple Abichandani (philanthropy executive) sharing critical insights and recommendations based on their multi-year investments into narrative change strategies.
Frequently Asked Questions
Imagination Requested is a self-paced course. The videos, learning questions and supplemental materials will remain live and accessible anytime on this password-protected Collaborative website. If you run into an inactive link for any reason, or if you lose the password to the course — please email [email protected] for access.
Each of the four lessons are short. The run-times are as follows:
Lesson 1: Narrative Oceans – 17:38
Lesson 2: Narrative System Case Study – 7:04
Lesson 3: Narrative Infrastructure – 19:48
Lesson 4: Narrative Evaluation – 11:10
We recommend pausing the video as you watch and listen to the content to let the ideas sink in. We also encourage you to take notes. Supplemental readings for each lesson can take 2-3 hours to read and digest. And, the reflection and learning questions that accompany each lesson are designed for solo reflection as well as team discussion — we recommend budgeting 1-2 hours for deeper engagement with the learning questions with your peers or colleagues .
For an engaged and spacious deep dive, we recommend watching the videos and then allocating 3-5 hours per lesson for continued reflection, reading and discussion.
At this time, the Imagination Requested learning series is being released as an invite-only beta-test. We request that you do NOT share this website and password with others. If you’d like to nominate a peer funder or colleague to view and offer structured feedback on their learning experience and preferences to the Pop Culture Collaborative’s Field and Funder Learning team, please email [email protected] to share their contact information.
After Imagination Requested has been tested, refined, and publicly released for a broader philanthropic audience, sharing of lessons and the website landing page will be encouraged.
es! Funders across social justice and arts philanthropy are learning, stretching and experimenting with strategies for building narrative power. The Pop Culture Collaborative’s team provides rigorous funder learning opportunities and consulting programs in the narrative change space, including our Managing Partner community, which offers our most rigorous learning environment for funders developing and testing grantmaking strategies; our Learning Partners community, offering funders the opportunity to learn through deeper immersion in one of the Collaborative’s flagship narrative change grantmaking programs; our Transformational Partners community, a space for individual donors to build out their philanthropic giving strategies in the narrative change field; and Entertain Change: Philanthropy (EC:P), our largest philanthropic learning community and network of nearly 200 funders and donors convened and supported to deepen their understanding of how to strategically resource and strengthen narrative strategies and the work of the pop culture narrative change field.
You can sign up for Entertain Change: Philanthropy by filling out this form here. To learn more about the other funder learning communities mentioned above or to request a consultation call with our staff of seasoned narrative and culture change strategists, cultural organizers, and educators, email [email protected].
We’ve got you! Email [email protected] and we’ll do our best to help!
At this time, Imagination Requested is offered free of charge to philanthropic leaders and practitioners who are interested in the full, four-part series. In the future, Imagination Requested will be hosted on a gated learning platform, made accessible to active, dues paying members of the Entertain Change: Philanthropy learning network. There may be membership fees or dues associated with access, which will be on a sliding scale based on philanthropic organizational budgets.
Credits
Hosts and Executive Producers
- Bridgit Antoinette Evans, CEO, Pop Culture Collaborative
- Tracy Van Slyke, Chief Strategy Officer, Pop Culture Collaborative
Guests
Episode 3
- Ai-jen Poo, President, National Domestic Workers Alliance; Executive Director, Caring Across Generations
- Imara Jones, Founder and CEO, TransLash
- Maha Chehlaoui, Creative Producer and Consultant, Think Tank for Inclusion and Equity
Episode 4
- Adey Fisseha, US Senior Program Officer, Unbound Philanthropy
- Alvin Starks, Division Director, OS-US, Open Society Foundations
- Dimple Abichandani, Philanthropic Advisor & National Center for Family Philanthropy
- Icela Pelayo, Program Officer, W.K. Kellogg Foundation
Production Team
- Daria Segalini, Special Projects Producer, Pop Culture Collaborative
- Fabiola Fabiano-Batista, Manager of Operations & Events, Pop Culture Collaborative
- Nicholai Joaquin, Chief of Staff to the CEO, Pop Culture Collaborative
- Nayantara Sen, Director of Field & Funder Learning, Pop Culture Collaborative
- Nancy Vitale, Director, Eyes Up Here Productions
- Breanne Hiser, Producer, People’s TV
- Jaselle Martino, Producer, People’s TV
- Justin Miller, Producer, People’s TV
- Lizzy Coplin, Executive Producer, People’s TV
- Ryder Haske, Executive Producer, People’s TV
- Amanda Rabinowitz, Production Coordinator, People’s TV
- Abigail Raney, Key Production Assistant, People’s TV
- Donovan Webb, Production Assistant, People’s TV
- Kendra Cusic, Production Designer, People’s TV
- Rahfee Wormley, Set Decorator, People’s TV
- Adela Wagner, Gaffer, People’s TV
- Tray Tsui, Grip, People’s TV
- Yusuke Sato, Director of Photography
- Yves Wilson, Camera Operator
- Kat Nguyen, Assistant Camera Operator
- John Wallace, Sound
- Nik Le Sante, Teleprompter Operator
- Dave Prokopec, Editor
- Moises Oliveira, Motion Graphics/Animation
Additional Credits
- Leora Edut, Make-Up Artist and Stylist for Bridgit Antoinette Evans and Tracy Van Slyke
- Starr Simpson, Make-Up Artist for Imara Jones
- Clip of “Normalizing Injustice” video courtesy of Color of Change
- Posters of Ai-jen Poo and Valarie Kaur courtesy of Amplifier
- Books courtesy of their authors: Sanctuary by Abby Sher and Paola Mendoza, The Age of Dignity by Ai-jen Poo