Image description: Event flyer. The title reads “2024 Advanced Training”. Below the title is a dynamic illustration of past Advanced Training participants. Some participants present their analysis on fliptcarts, and some simulate their organizing campaigns. At the bottom of the image, the text reads “June 11-14. Location: Corbett, OR. Apply by 03/20: BIT.LY/CSS2024AT”
The Advanced Training (AT) is a 4-day deep immersion in Story-based Strategy concepts and tools. Story-based Strategy is a framework that integrates core principles from organizing, communications, narrative, and culture, and has built with grassroots movements in changing the story for over 20 years.
This training is for organizers and movement people who want to practice more creative storytelling and critical narrative analysis. Through a combination of training, coaching, peer collaboration, and radical imagination participants will have the opportunity to engage in political consciousness, apply tools and learnings in campaign labs, and grow opportunities to facilitate Story-based Strategy in their movement work and communities.
We will cover CSS tools, like Narrative Power Media Analysis (NPMA), Battle of the Story (BOS), Campaign Cornerstones, Drama Triangle, Points of Intervention (POI), and the 4th Box, to name some, and create spaces for deep practice and facilitation. During the last two days, we focus on campaign labs, where participants get to use and facilitate these tools on real and current campaigns at the intersections of Just Transition strategies and provide ideas for creative interventions. See the Training Goals and Curriculum Overview below.
Our goal is that AT Participants will:
Develop and deepen effective Story-based Strategy skills
Learn from a creative toolkit to use in their campaigns and organizations
Apply strategy and ideas in our campaign labs, creating Story-based Strategies for current and real-world campaigns
Build cross-movement connections that expand learning, cohere strategy, and forge lasting relationships with other practitioners for long-term support and collaboration
Curriculum Overview
Narrative Power – Get grounded in concepts of narrative strategy. Learn frameworks to dismantle and build narrative power, as an important practice to advance our visions for justice, accountability and care.
Radical Imagination: Immerse in the meaning, importance and tools of radical imagination for our movements and visions.
Story-based Strategy (SBS) – Deepen SBS through examples and practice:
Assumptions Spectrogram: Surface underlying assumptions about the role of narrative and theories of change in an interactive style.
Elements Of Story: Identify the elements of story using a popular education approach.
Cornerstones: Clarify all the pre-conditions necessary to begin crafting a story-based strategy.
Narrative Power Media Analysis: Identify disinformation and dominant narratives targeting our communities and explore some of the elements of story, underlying assumptions, and framing in these stories.
Battle of the Story: Apply a narrative power analysis and craft effective frames to challenge harmful narratives and paint possible futures for our targets, audiences, and/or constituencies.
Drama Triangle: Distill core characters and power relationships in narratives using a simple model of reframing to support strategic discussion.
Fairy Tales: Lean intro radical imagination and apply creative synthesis and distillation of a framing narrative.
The 4th Box: Radical analysis, reflection and imagination tool to identify underlying assumptions and possible futures when we take out narrative and living barriers.
Points Of Intervention: Pinpoint and design strategic and creative interventions and direct actions to make “the invisible, visible” using narrative power frameworks.
Story Circle: Practice a framework for container building, group sharing, connecting to personal narrative and purpose. Connect to the power of story in our everyday lives.
Campaign Labs: Practice the deepened CSS tools and co-develop ideas in support of a real and current campaign. Use imagination as a tool and implement story-based strategy a campaign with a low stakes testing and refining process. Get confidence practicing CSS tools and concepts.
SBS network – As Grace Lee Boggs said, “In this exquisitely connected world, it's never a question of 'critical mass’. It's always about critical connections.” Join, build and transform a network of Story-Based Strategy practitioners. Create long-lasting relationships with people moving towards envisioned just worlds.
The Intro Training to Story-based Strategy (SBS) or other type of CSS engagement is strongly encouraged and will be prioritized for this Advanced Training.
Join us!
WHAT: Story-based Strategy Advanced Training
WHEN: Tuesday, June 11th, 2024 to Friday, June 14th, 2024
WHERE: In-person (!) at Corbett, Oregon
The CSS 2024 Advanced Training applications are closed.
Accessibility:
Find our Accessibility Guidelines here.
*Depending on interest and needs this training may be facilitated bilingually, in Spanish and English, and provide simultaneous interpretation.*
Please help us improve our accessibility to these spaces - let us know what we can do better!
Tuition:
In alignment with our commitment to make our gatherings accessible, we offer our trainings on a sliding scale. The full tuition for this training is based on your organization's budget and will cover lodging and all meals throughout the training. We are asking all participants to stay on site for health safety protocols and relationship-building purposes. The tuition won’t cover transportation (mileage, flights, etc.) to and from the training - we will ask participants to coordinate and separately pay for their transportation. This financial contribution will partly help us compensate our trainers and pay for lodging and food. We may be able to offer limited scholarships. Nobody will be turned away for lack of funds!
Options:
$750 - Organizational Budget of $250,000 or below
$1,000 - Organizational Budget of $250,000 – $500,000
$1,500 - Organizational Budget of $500,000 or more
Note: If you are applying as an individual, please choose an amount on the sliding scale according to your financial capacity.
Please email trainings@storybasedstrategy.org if you have any questions.
