What is hope-based communication?
How to use hope as a smart strategy for social change.
Hope-based communication is a strategy for anyone working for social change to make their activism more strategic and effective. It's a practical, open-source five-shift approach anyone can use for social change under a creative commons license. People are already using hope-based communication for social change all over the world.
We all have a choice between hope and fear
We human beings have a built-in, instinctive negativity bias. This leads us to focus on problems, threats and the things we are against. But we also have an incredible capacity for creativity, compassion and change. When activated, it allows us to think of solutions, opportunities and show what we are for. We just have to train our ability to respond to the world with hope, not fear.
If we approach issues with our problem-focused analytical midnset we talk about what is going wrong, but forget to also think about what could be instead.
The hope-based approach is focused on articulating alternatives so that we have a chance to make them happen.
When we talk about hope, what we mean is that hope is the idea that tomorrow can be better, if we act.
It is a worldview that believes we human beings can change. That we can train shared humanity: hope, caring, kindness, compassion. We are on a mission to organize hope, to use hope as a smart strategy for social change, so that we make compassion common sense in our politics and societies.
How do we respond to populism?
Hope-based communication started as a means to counter authoritarian populism. Because we in social change have policies, and populists have stories.
But where are we going? What is our dream? What is the destination?
We need a vision, and that has to come from somewhere, and someone. We believe the answer to this question comes from inside us. This is a tool for finding the hope in our story.
It is not about finding a hopeful story, it is about finding the hope in every story.
How Hope-based Communication Works
Social change depends on people working together globally to change narratives, attitudes and behaviors. Hope-based Communication uses brain science, human psychology and marketing to multiply the vision values and voices of the social change movement.
The hope-based communication approach was originally developed as a tool for narrative strategy at Amnesty International in 2017-2018. This approach involves showing, not telling, people how to change. Changemakers can use Hope-based Communication to tell stories that drive new attitudes, behavior and narratives. But they can also use it to exemplify new approaches to social change for others to adopt.
Hope is a smart strategy for social change
What are the five hope-based shifts?
Hope-based Communication is a practical five-shift approach any changemaker can use to base their daily work on the change they hope to see.
The five hope-based shifts are:
From Fear to Hope: Changing emphasis from what we fear to what we hope for.
From Problem to Solution: Focusing on solutions rather than problems.
From Against to For: Advocating for our positive, intrinsic values instead of the negative, extrinsic ones we oppose.
From Threat to Opportunity: Reframing threats as shared opportunities to grow and improve our lives and societies.
From Victim to Human: Emphasizing human dignity, agency and collaboration over victimhood.
A theory of change based on brain science
Hope-based communication is an approach designed specifically for changemakers struggling to adapt to the challenges of the 21st century such as populism and new technologies. This approach is a game-changing application of brain science to social change.
Brain science tells us that human beings learn behavior from what they see. This means social change must focus on showing the change we want to see.
Our values will only grow if someone sets out to cultivate them. This means changemakers need to constantly repeat what they want to see more of, rather than fighting what they oppose.
Our approach is also marketing-based: We can spread change if we integrate compelling storytelling and the science of empathy with principles of marketing and a deep understanding of the algorithms that power content engagement. Doing this, we can inspire better human behavior, foster compassion, and build human connection.
Why we need hope, not fear
Fear is a highly organized force in today’s world, with populist authoritarians using digital technology to spread division and hate at unprecedented levels. Meanwhile, social change organizations are often stuck in reactive mode, inadvertently reinforcing negative narratives by constantly responding to them, leaving activists feeling ineffective, demotivated, and burned out.
Society and politics is pervaded by a sense of fear that seeds apathy, division and self-interest. Stories of decline and cruelty get far more attention than stories of change and humanity. In this climate, it is hard to share hopes for a better future, even though hope is what we need right now. We are missing big hopeful ideas - the visions, values and voices that inspire us to be better and provide shared goals to unite around.
Humans learn action from the stories we tell: so telling more hopeful stories about humanity and drive better action - we can bring a radically better world into being, if we can imagine it.
Anyone can use the hope-based approach to rediscover their hope (or that of their community) and turn it into action. Our movement elevates and amplifies hope-based people and ideas to make them more likely to become reality.
Using hope-based communication helps people to find the hope in their own story, and to take action to make their hope reality through action and collective storytelling.
The role of hope in social change
There are three strategic reasons to pursue hope:
Hope is a necessary emotion for social change because people who feel hope are more likely to have empathy, whereas fear makes us focus on self-interest.
People are more likely to act if they believe change is possible.
Seeing evidence for hope changes narratives about what is possible and desirable that influence actual political decisions as well as our own attitudes and behavior.
When engaging in hope-based communication we are doing two things:
Trying to activate hope in the audience in order for them to be open to what we have to say, to care about others and to take action.
Shifting our own work to focus on what we hope to achieve rather than what we want to avoid.
Our Vision: Making Compassion Common Sense
What if we invested as much in nurturing the change we hope to see as we do in fighting what we fear?
We want a world where compassion is common sense. We believe that hope is a smart strategy for promoting the attitudes, behavior and culture that underpin democracy, human rights, freedom to move, gender equality, racial justice, climate justice and civic space - worldwide.
We can reclaim the initiative by building a new global ecosystem for stories and narratives that nurture the trust, mutual care and agency essential for democracy, human rights and climate justice.
Because the stories we tell today are the actions we take tomorrow.
For new social norms, or new social change tactics, to get picked up by our mirror neurons, they need to be seen: we need to show, not tell, the change we want to see happen.
We need to get organized to promote the values, vision and voices of our movement. With a global, concerted effort to promote intrinsic values and real alternatives, we can develop innovative responses to crises and find renewed purpose and resilience.
Some of our favourite hope-based talks and articles
I did a Tedx Talk about hope-based communication! You can watch it here. (Sadly, we filmed it during the pandemic so no audience could be present).
Here are some of our favourite Substack posts so far:
a review of some of the best books about brain science and persuasion, introducing concepts like deep canvassing and motivated reasoning.
guidance for people who just experienced a painful election result: the kind when a cruel, authoritarian populist wins makes us question everything.
a pitch for Rehumanization: a new approach to human rights based on the science of empathy and compassion to counter hate and racism.
a new communication strategy called Collective Storytelling, in which we work together to elevate and amplify the stories that grow the narratives we want. After all, we are all influencers.
We have proposed new hope-based approaches for migration, human rights, European integration, climate justice and promoting democracy.
Subscribe now for regular updates from hope-based experts around the world working on new ways of working for social change around the world.
Let us know what you would like to see in the next edition: some work you want to highlight? an issue you are struggling to tackle in a hope-based way? Let us know!