smartMeme
Re:Imagining Change – An Introduction to Story-based Strategy explores how culture, media, memes and narrative intertwine with activist strategies, and offers practical methods to amplify progressive causes in the popular culture. This hands-on guide presents theories, tools, and campaign case studies that integrate storytelling and social change. Re:Imagining Change is a fresh perspective on activism that offers unique insights into the challenges of our political moment, and invites us to engage with questions of theory and practice for the complex times we live in.
Co-authored by Doyle Canning & Patrick Reinsborough, Re:Imagining Change is an inspirational, inside look at the innovative methodology developed by the non-profit strategy and training organization, smartMeme. Founded in 2002, smartMeme offers tools, training, and strategy support to social change organizations working for peace, social justice, and ecological sanity. SmartMeme has trained over 2,000 activists and collaborated with over 60 organizations to build cross-cutting alliances and win campaigns on critical environmental, human rights, and social justice issues. Re:Imagining Change is a summary of these experiments in the field, and a call to innovate how we practice social change in the era of information overload and ecological crisis.
Doyle and Patrick are both accomplished speakers, facilitators, trainers and long time social change practitioners who can provide both skills based trainings and inspiring lectures grounded in real world, grassroots experience.
They are available to talk about & facilitate workshops on:
- Re:Imagining Change – Narrative Strategies for 21st Century Activism
- Winning the Battle of the Story – How the Power of Narrative can help you Win Campaigns and Shift Culture
- A Call to Innovation: Reimagining Strategy and Facing the Ecological Crisis
About the Authors
Doyle Canning is a strategist, trainer, and organizer with a passion for stories and a commitment to building holistic movements. She came to the smartMeme collective in 2003 after studying critical pedagogy, working as a grassroots organizer, and being banned from Australia for rabble rousing down under. Doyle serves on the advisory funding panel of the Haymarket People’s Fund, an antiracist social change foundation in Boston. She has written a number of articles on social change strategy, including a contribution to Letters from Young Activists (Nation Books, 2005). She enjoys practicing yoga, improvisational cooking, and singing songs of love and struggle.
Patrick Reinsborough is a strategist, campaigner and creative provocateur. He has been involved in campaigns for peace, the environment, and social justice for nearly twenty years, and previously served as the Organizing Director of the Rainforest Action Network. In 2002 he co-founded the smartMeme strategy & training project as a vehicle to explore the intersections of social change strategy, imagination and narrative. Several of his strategy essays are published in Globalize Liberation: How to Uproot the System and Build a Better World. Patrick spends his time parenting, playing music for his friends, and wandering through the urban wilds of San Francisco.
What People Are Saying
“Yo Organizers! Stop what you are doing for a couple hours and soak up this book! We know the importance of smart “issue framing.” But Re:Imagining Change will move our organizing further as we connect to the powerful narrative stories and memes of our culture.” —Chuck Collins, Institute for Policy Studies, author of The Economic Meltdown Funnies and other books on economic inequality
“SmartMeme’s Re:Imagining Change is such an incredible resource! This is a book to consume, to go over meticulously, mark up, share with friends, and keep within arm’s reach on the shelf. The format is so accessible, the analysis and case studies show how important their groundbreaking story-based strategy is for all of the work we’re doing. Ruckus wants every group we work with to grab this book!” —Adrienne Maree Brown, Executive Director, The Ruckus Society
“Brilliant and invaluable. Lakoff introduced the progressive movement to the power of framing. Canning and Reinsborough take framing to a far more powerful level and provide practical tools essential to the success of every progressive organization that seeks to bring forth a world of peace and justice. It gets my highest recommendation.” —David Korten, board chair, YES! magazine and author The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community and Agenda for a New Economy
“Re:Imagining Change is worthy of praise. As an introduction to story-based strategy, the book offers organizers and advocates a new and necessary way to understand and transform the impact of stories on our public life.” —Malkia Cyril, Director, Center for Media Justice
“We are surrounded and shaped by stories every day, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. But what Doyle Canning and Patrick Reinsborough point out is a beautiful and powerful truth - that we are all storytellers too. Armed with the right narrative tools, activists can not only open the world’s eyes to injustice, but feed the desire for a better world. Re:Imagining Change is a powerful weapon for a more democratic, creative and hopeful future.” —Raj Patel, Author of Stuffed and Starved
“Politics is as much about who controls meanings as it is about who holds public office and sits in office suites. Knowing how to knock on doors, organize community meetings and plan a street protest is no longer enough, today’s activists need to know how to generate symbols, tell stories, and tap into popular dreams. smartMeme’s RE:Imagining Change is THE handbook for fighting on this cultural terrain. The only problem I have with the book is that I can’t keep it on my desk — all my activist friends keep borrowing it.” —Stephen Duncombe, author of Dream: Re-Imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy
“Re:Imagining Change is a one-of-a-kind essential resource for everyone who is thinking big, challenging the powers-that-be and working hard to make a better world from the ground up. This innovative book provides the tools, analysis, and inspiration to help activists everywhere be more effective, creative and strategic.” —Antonia Juhasz, author of The Tyrany of Oil: The World’s Most Powerful Industry and What We Must Do To Stop It and The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time
“Once upon a time, left-wing activists thought being right was good enough, but the past decade has seen a more elegant and effective understanding that you need to be a lot more if you want to be right and also win. SmartMeme’s guidebook to being that more—smarter, more engaging, more subversive, more powerful—should be in every activist’s hands and imagination; it’s a great toolkit for change. That’s what’s powerful about Re: Imagining Change. What’s beautiful about it is its assertion that the world is made out of stories and that the world we want will be made out of the stories we tell and out of our becoming better storytellers.” — Rebecca Solnit, author of A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communites that Arise in Disaster and Hope in the Dark: Untold Stories, Wild Possibilities
“Our stories are powerful enough to change the world—if you believe. smartMeme’s Re:imagining change will give you the tools and confidence to unleash the power of the stories that live in your community and make the dream of another world is possible, a reality. ” —Robby Rodriguez, Executive Director of the SouthWest Organizing Project and co-author of Working Across Generations: Defining the Future of Nonprofit Leadership
