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October 2024 Begins with Home Campaign Briefing (Full Recording and Slides)

We shared our top message and content recommendations just in time for your Fall 2024 projects and campaigns, and the resources you need to put them into action.

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June 2024 Begins with Home Campaign Briefing (Full Recording and Slides)

June’s briefing is your one-stop shop for digesting recent learnings from Begins with Home’s cultural activations, paid ads, and social media video strategy.

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March 2024 Begins with Home Campaign Briefing (Full Recording and Slides)

Check out this March 2024 briefing to learn more about our Begins with Home storytelling direction this spring and how you can align your work & engage with us along the way

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January 2024 Begins with Home Campaign Briefing (Full Recording and Slides)

Catch the launch of our Begins with Home Narrative Playbook and align your work for housing justice with best practices, messages, and frameworks using this new research-backed resource

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November 2023 Begins with Home Campaign Briefing (Full Recording and Slides)

Check out materials from our first Begins with Home briefing to get our latest annual narrative research and dive deep into the strategic approach behind this newly launched public information campaign.

2023 Annual Housing Narrative Survey from EMC Research

After surveying 1,500 voters from the 9-county Bay Area in September-October 2023, EMC Research shares the latest key findings around the values and attitudes influencing housing and racial justice, as well as the policies and messages resonating with Bay Area residents.

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The Story We Need to Tell About Homelessness Workshop (Full Recording and Slides)

This workshop focused on discussion and practice with the How to Talk about Homelessness Messaging Guide — Shift the Bay’s best resource for making the case that homelessness is a housing problem and we know how to solve it.

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2022 Narrative Polling with EMC Research (Full Recording and Slides)

EMC Research shared the latest key findings that can help us to measure the values influencing housing and racial justice narrative shift and identify which policies and messages are resonating with Bay Area residents.

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Housing Elements: Moving the People who Move Housing Policy Workshop (Full Recording and Slides)

This workshop leveraged our existing Housing Elements research, messages, and materials to review best practices to engage decision-makers in meaningful, persuasive, and impactful pro-housing justice conversations.

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Housing Elements: Digital Organizing Training (Full Recording and Slides)

This training focused on leveraging digital tools (social media, email, SMS) to implement an effective organizing strategy for Housing Element community engagement.

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Housing Elements: Effective Messaging Training (Full Recording and Slides)

This presentation will walk you through how to take advantage of this tool to effectively reach residents across the region and inspire inclusive action on Housing Elements.

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Lifting Up Impacted Tenant Voices in the News (Training Recording)

This training provided advice and examples from M+R and local housing advocacy organizations about how to successfully 1) reach and bring in tenant voices; 2) get to know those tenants; 3) prepare them to interview with reporters or publish opinion pieces.

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Having Tough Conversations with Reporters (Training Recording)

Led by M+R Communications, you’ll hear from the experts on how to conquer tough conversations with reporters while keeping your organization’s image and stance intact.

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Shift the Bay: “Media Tips” Training, November 2021

This training provided an effective process for how to prepare for successful media interviews, covering what we can do before, during, and after an interview with a reporter to shape the news story and build the reporter relationship.

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Opinion Pieces Slide Deck

Slide deck from our “Opinion Pieces” media training

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“Opinion Pieces” Event, October 2021

How to shape, deliver, and secure placement for opinion pieces in media outlets

Shift the Bay: Media Relations Best Practices Training Slide Deck

Slide deck from our “Making News in Bay Area” presentation

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Shift the Bay: Making News in Bay Area Media Outlets

Tips, trends, and do’s and don’ts for getting to know Bay Area reporters and getting their attention

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Shift the Bay Media Relations Best Practices Training Handout

Cheat sheet: For the readers in the crowd, a written overview of the content covered during our August media training

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(Condensed) Shift the Bay: Moving from Messaging to Narrative (Session 3)

The Cliffs Notes version of our workshop on how to turn research and narrative strategy into direct application and messaging ahead.

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(Condensed) Shift the Bay: Moving a Housing Justice Agenda Forward (Session 1)

The Cliffs Notes version of our Playbook overview for a window into narrative shift, ways to unseat unhelpful dominant narratives, and opportunities to mobilize people to action.

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(Condensed) Shift the Bay: The Research Behind the Playbook (Session 2)

The Cliffs Notes version of our session on the rigorous Bay Area research program that informed our Seize the Narrative playbook.

Top Three Takeaways: ASO Communications Bay Area Workshop

Key messaging principles from Anat Shenker-Osorio

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Anat Shenker-Osorio Narrative Workshop (full workshop)

Combine cutting edge communications research with a background in standup comedy, and you get Anat Shenker-Osorio.

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Shift the Narrative -Tiffany Manuel (full workshop)

Called the affordable housing movement’s “rockstar” of communications, Dr Tiffany Manuel takes our coalition through critical messaging research and narrative application.

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Messaging Race & Class – Anat Shenker-Osorio (workshop clip)

It’s not just morally righteous to acknowledge race and class, research shows that it’s a winning message.

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People Do Things – Anat Shenker-Osorio (workshop clip)

How being direct can radically transform peoples’ perceptions of what they see, hear, and believe about the world around us.

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Sell the Payoff, Not the Policy – Anat Shenker-Osorio (workshop clip)

If you haven’t heard Anat’s “Sell the brownie” metaphor, you are in for a treat!

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Power of Metaphor – Anat Shenker-Osorio (workshop clip)

Did you know that humans use metaphorical speech in American English every six to seven words? 

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Start With the “We” and “Why” – Dr. Tiffany Manuel (workshop clip)

We have to show the “we” and “why” before we get to the “what.”

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The Backfire Effect – Dr. Tiffany Manuel (workshop clip)

Stop trying to talk people out of their beliefs  — it actually reinforces their current position. 

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We Don’t Want the Backpack – Dr. Tiffany Manuel (workshop clip)

How do you know if you’re talking about a technical problem or an adaptive problem? It all comes down to the backpack.

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Who’s Coming To That Party? – Dr. Tiffany Manuel (workshop clip)

How can you motivate folks to join forces with you for solutions? Make sure you’re throwing the party they want to attend.

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Shift the Narrative Casemaking & Audiences – Dr. Tiffany Manuel (workshop clip)

How to shape our delivery and make the case — so that our message isn’t just delivered but truly heard

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Narrative Power Media Analysis

Provided as part of our initiative’s work with Center for Story-Based Strategy, the Narrative Power Media Analysis offers guiding questions, prompts, and a narrative strategy to support developing multi-media creative […]

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Haas Institute: Shifting the Narrative

What it Takes to Reframe the Debate for Social Justice in the US

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Research Overview: National Narrative & Funders for Housing and Opportunity

Findings from Focus Groups and a Dial Survey on Housing in the United States

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Notes of a Cultural Strategy of Belonging

Four essential practices of a cultural strategy for belonging

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Piecing it Together

A framing playbook for affordable housing advocates.

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“You Don’t Have to Live Here”

The seminal research that started the conversation on narrative shift: Why housing messages backfire and 10 things we can do about it.

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Making the Case for Systems Change

Tackling the Issues of Gentrification and Displacement

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Race-Class California: Our Progressive Narrative

Both economic and racial justice are core progressive priorities, but too often we discuss them separately.

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Shelterforce: How Do We Change the Narrative Around Housing?

In-depth public opinion research points to ways to intensify support for housing justice policies—and to a few danger spots to avoid.

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Shift the Narrative Playbook

Our playbook on advancing housing and racial justice in the Bay Area, based on field-practiced and research-tested strategies and messages.

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Moving from Messaging to Narrative (Session 3)

Workshop with our experts on how to turn research and narrative strategy into direct application and messaging ahead.

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The Research Behind the Playbook (Session 2)

Examine the rigorous Bay Area research program that informed our Seize the Narrative playbook — from focus groups to polling reviews to values-mapping of Bay Area constituents.

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Shift the Bay: Advancing Housing & Racial Justice (Explainer Video)

This video offers a dynamic visualization of our initiative’s Seize the Narrative Playbook. Watch, learn, enjoy — and then dig in further to our Playbook and additional resources.