Frameworks supports organisations to tell their stories
An American organisation that offers support to charitable organisations has formed a UK wing.
FrameWorks UK, a new organisation supporting charities and mission-driven organisations to retell their story and create lasting change, has launched this month.
FrameWorks UK is the sister organisation of the US-based Frameworks Institute which has been supporting third sector organisations in the UK to reframe their issues for nearly a decade. Now, FrameWorks in the US has created a new organisation with an explicit focus on supporting the UK mission-driven sector to use well-framed communications and create positive change.
‘Framing’ is the choices we make about what we say and how we say it. FrameWorks conducts research which uncovers how people think about important social issues and what affects that thinking. This research is shaped into practical communications advice, strategies and content, which supports advocates to replace unproductive stories with ones that are capable of changing hearts and minds.
To celebrate their launch, FrameWorks UK is offering a free one-off webinar on how to frame communications to create lasting change. Executive director of FrameWorks UK, Kate Stanley, will share the latest insights from our research across a wide range of social issues, together with examples of effective framing in action. The online event, Changing the stories that shape our world: 5 tools to frame your message in 2021 will run from 2-3pm on Tuesday 6 July.
Stanley said: “The stories we tell shape the world around us. When experts and activists communicate about social issues without understanding the common mental shortcuts that shape people’s thinking, our messages often fall flat, and even backfire.
“But by using tested framing approaches, FrameWorks helps organisations and change makers spark major shifts in public thinking. We’re delighted to scale up our efforts to help spread the framing revolution.”
FrameWorks has supported organisations to reframe a range of issues including early childhood development, poverty, homelessness and health.
Their award-winning partnership with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) has changed the conversation about poverty in the UK. FrameWorks’ research revealed the common mental shortcuts that shape people’s thinking about poverty. From this, they tested framing strategies to activate people’s helpful beliefs and increase support for government action. Working with JRF, they equipped organisations, campaigners, and activists with lived experience of poverty to tell a new, more powerful, story. Messengers like Marcus Rashford, faith leaders, tabloid newspapers and senior politicians from across the political spectrum have all spoken about poverty using that reframed story.
