SMARTMEME MISSION
SmartMeme builds movements and amplifies the impact of grassroots organizing with new strategy and training resources, values based communications, collaborations, and meme campaigning. SmartMeme uses the power of narrative to advance a holistic vision of grassroots social change that connects struggles for democracy, peace, justice, and ecological sanity.
For more info about smartMeme's work and innovative approach check out the new book RE:IMAGINING CHANGE -- HOW TO USE STORY-BASED STRATEGY TO WIN CAMPAIGNS, BUILD MOVEMENTS AND CHANGE THE WORLD by smartMeme co-director's Patrick Reinsborough & Doyle Canning published by PM Press (April 2010). Order your copy at www.smartMeme.org/book
ABOUT SMARTMEME
Founded in 2002, smartMeme is a non-profit organization that combines grassroots movement building with strategies to change the stories that shape the dominant culture. Through our efforts to assist grassroots groups and advocacy campaigns in telling their stories more effectively smartMeme has developed the story-based strategy approach. SmartMeme has trained over 3,000 activists and collaborated with over 100 organizations to apply story-based strategy to grassroots organizing and advocacy efforts.
The story-based strategy approach is grounded in a narrative analysis of power––the recognition that humans understand the world and their role in it through stories and thus all power relations have a narrative component. Every issue already has a web of existing stories and cultural assumptions that frame public understanding. Story-based strategy provides a process to understand the current story around an issue and identify opportunities to change that story with the right framing, messages, messengers and creative interventions.
Storytelling has always been a powerful tool for organizers and movement builders to name problems, unite constituencies, and mobilize people towards solutions. Story-based strategy links this traditional organizing technique with new strategy, training, and communications methods––like framing and branding-–to give social change advocates the tools to hone their story, challenge prevailing cultural narratives, and ultimately win campaigns on the issues that affect all our lives.
Humans communicate our stories through rituals, customs, words, symbols, and ideas – these are “memes” (rhymes with dreams). Memes are units of cultural information that evolve through culture and continue to replicate, spreading virally from person to person, generation to generation with a life of their own. The term meme, was coined by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in 1976 as an analogy to the word “gene.”
At smartMeme we like to think of memes as viral narratives or as capsules for a story that helps them spread without losing their meaning. The term may be new but crafting memes has always played a role in effective social change work. From creating slogans like “no taxation without representation” or “Si se Puede!” to naming new movements like “climate justice” or “peoples’ globalization” to crafting unifying symbols like the peace sign or the iconic Obama “Hope” image or promoting new cultural practices like recycling or water conservation, the right meme can often help a social change idea move rapidly through the culture.
In today’s media-saturated culture where 24/7 sound byte news coverage seamlessly blends with the onslaught of global advertising and marketing, social change brands and messages can be easily overwhelmed by the tidal wave of information. SmartMeme works to overcome these obstacles by helping grassroots activists bring a more sophisticated understanding of the dynamics of the cultural environment and the power of storytelling to their social change campaigns. At smartMeme we believe deeply that changing the story is the first step to changing the world.