CSS BLOG

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Over the course of 5 transformative days (and on the heals of the Orlando Massacre) 50 people gathered to share, learn, connect, and expand the possibilities of what story-based strategy is and how it can truly Change The Story. We opened the training with "Imagine the Angels of Bread" by Martin Espada, and we closed by making our own version of this powerful poem. We share this now to serve as both a source of inspiration & as a reminder of what we know to be possible.

It can feel like the world is falling apart at the seams. Rising sea levels threaten entire communities, and the 1% get richer while the rest of us struggle more and more just to get by. Donald Trump has all but sewn up a Presidential nomination, riding a wave of racism and anti-immigrant hatred. It seems like nothing can stop the world from collapsing around us. But there is another world rising up in the place of the old one. It’s this new world that the Center for Story-Based Strategy (CSS) helps others to imagine every day. 

Earlier this month our CSS Imagination staff teamed up with our friends at the Interaction Institute for Social Change to do some Imagin-action work that we called #The4thBox. Our goal was to spark imagination and conversation with a blank box that anyone could fill in.

CSS has been involved in building the North America climate justice movement for a number of years, recently through our role as a founding member of the Climate Justice Alliance’s Our Power Campaign. In December of last year the world’s eyes were on the United Nation’s COP-21 Climate Talks in Paris where the countries of the world negotiated the first ever truly global climate treaty.

In January 2016, after nearly two years of community members raising health concerns about their tap water, the situation in Flint finally got some national public attention. There was the typical blast of media coverage: TV lights, headlines, journalists asking politicians a few tough questions… but inevitably the media cycle moves on while the day-to-day crisis still exists.

Three years ago a handful of fast food cooks and cashiers went on strike in New York City. Their brave action, taken without the protection of a union or a labor contract, sparked what has grown into the Fight for 15 Campaign that includes fast food workers, home care workers, gas station attendants, Wal-Mart workers and airport workers.

The time is coming, once again, to gather social movement leaders, change-agents, and communications practitioners in beautiful Corbett, Oregon (Menucha Retreat and Conference Center) for 5 days of hands-on training and creative strategy-development: that's right, it's almost time for CSS's 2016 Advanced Training!

Last November CSS co-founder Patrick Reinsborough travelled to Berlin to attend a convening of the European SmartCSOs Lab. Smart CSOs is an international network of campaigners, activists, researchers and funders exploring how civil society organizations can be more effective drivers of systemic change.

Greenpeace has been designing and implementing high impact, headline grabbing campaigns for over 40 years. Our work at the Center for Story-based Strategy has been greatly influenced by the original Greenpeace ideas around using media spectacle to create “mind bombs”.