(Re)Introducing Word Force: Our Origin and Evolution
At Word Force, we’re constantly evolving— it’s a practice that is baked into our very DNA.
Our service was born out of a landscape analysis of COVID-19 messaging among immigrant communities. Early in the pandemic, funders were at a loss for what direction to take to best support immigrant rights organizations through the crisis. Rinku Sen led a team who interviewed 50 different racial justice and immigrant rights leaders across the country. What emerged from those conversations, in addition to narratives stemming from COVID messages, was a capacity obstacle facing small to medium grassroots organizations. They had the ideas and narrative vision, but even with communications staff, were stretched too thin to insert their values into the news cycle. One recommendation was to create a corps of ghostwriters for organizations without resources comparable to big PR firms. Enter: Word Force.
Since then we have worked with dozens of organizations across many issues, from reproductive justice to immigrant rights. We’ve had successes, we’ve had challenges and we’ve learned from them all. It’s almost like we are in a perpetual state of landscaping: listening to and understanding what Changemakers are saying, thinking and doing to see where the obstacles and opportunities lie. While we started with the intention of producing story-forward content that supports long term narrative change–ranging from op/eds and threads to Instagram Reels– we realized that organizations need more than that. Changemaker organizations need practical tools to make narrative practice part of their everyday work. So with our partners we have developed tools and templates to do just that, from Narrative Style Guides to accessible narrative-forward media training and even webinars that bridge the gap between strategic comms of the moment and narrative strategy for a generation; Word Force meets the needs of changemakers whenever and however it arises.
It’s almost like we are in a perpetual state of landscaping: listening to and understanding what Changemakers are saying, thinking and doing to see where the obstacles and opportunities lie.
That leads us to the next chapter of Word Force. In addition to supporting our individual Changemaker organizations, we will be revising and revamping our resources to be open source so that more folks who want to bridge strategic communications with narrative vision have the tools to do that, even if they are not official Word Force members. And to make sure that these tools get in the hands of the folks who want and need them, that means doing more of what we do for our Changemakers for ourselves. Connecting with and building a larger community of individuals working across issue areas to effect lasting change who see the value of storytelling and want to do more. This is a formal invitation to join us on this journey; and this is the first stop, our new website that better reflects the work we do. We look forward to listening and building with you.
Yours in Organizing,