"If we are truly going to shift values, we sometimes have to talk with folks that don’t always share the same ideologies that we share. And we are going to have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable...." —Aisha Nyandoro
Lived experience and courage to disrupt norms can drive narrative power.
Understanding how stories spread in this fast-changing media environment can be a game changer for those committed to advancing racial and economic justice, peace, health, safety, climate action, and democracy. Narrative isn’t just a reflection of culture. It’s one of the most powerful tools to change it.
This was clear during the recent New York City mayoral primary where a candidate leaned into his identity to shape an engaging and uniquely inclusive campaign. His team cultivated belonging and connected with audiences through accessible content that made a wide range of issues easy to understand in many languages. This shaped conversations that New Yorkers have been having around transit, housing and childcare, showing how narrative can expand public dialogue.
Similarly, sharing your story and work—whether on a stage, on op-ed pages, or in meetings with potential collaborators—is one of the most effective ways to advance issues and ideas you champion. The stories we tell and who gets to tell them define which ideas gain traction and which movements flourish.
But here’s the challenge: How do social change leaders shift narratives in a public arena that a privileged few typically shape? Despite persistent calls for inclusion, representation in public discourse still falls short. In a 2021 study of more than 1,500 media guest appearances, only 32% were women and just 27% were Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). The same disparities persist across television, radio, op-ed pages, conferences, and podcasting.
To understand how social change leaders—especially those on the margins—can break through, we interviewed an influential cohort of changemakers and thought leaders. Their insights challenged conventional ideas of what a public leader actually is.
For anyone looking to move bold ideas into the mainstream and galvanize the public imagination, here are key insights we surfaced.
1. The challenge is the gift
It’s easy to equate leadership with being relentlessly accomplished. But respect and influence don’t come from titles or traditional accolades. They emerge when leaders embrace their innate strengths and the wisdom of their lived experience.
No one knows this better than Angela Patton who, in reminiscing about her grade school days, describes herself as talkative, rebellious, and always challenging the status quo.
While this earned her the label of “troublemaker,” teachers also recognized her potential. And her classmates filled her yearbook with notes predicting that she would go on to do powerful things.
Embracing her drive to disrupt norms set her on the path to leadership. Her personal experience fueled a commitment to “prepare Black girls for the world and the world for Black girls”. She went on to lead a nonprofit, Girls for a Change, through which 100 girls’ groups across the nation work together to envision and create lasting change.
By leaning into what made her unique, Patton built trust and credibility. She is gaining traction with her work to reframe the narrative around “at-promise” (as opposed to “at-risk”) girls. This includes taking to the TED stage to “just tell people Blacks girls got it going on” and co-directing the deeply moving, award-winning documentary, Daughters, which is available on Netflix.
2. It takes an ecosystem
A lone voice shouting into a void doesn’t lead to narrative change. It emerges from an ecosystem of players: organizers, journalists, podcasters, artists, funders, and others.
As Ai-jen Poo shared through her “care as infrastructure” work, movements gain traction when each player brings their tools and perspectives to the table. It’s not about being a “sage on a stage,” but rather co-creating the conditions where ideas can take root, spread, and stick.
At the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), Poo and her team collaborated with over 70 local organizations and chapters with over 200,000 members to pass a Domestic Worker Bills of Rights in 10 states and the cities of Seattle and Philadelphia. That victory brought more than 2 million home care workers under minimum wage protections.
This success was also the result of not treating policy and culture change as separate things. Instead, Poo used what she calls a “braided strategy” to weave them together. She leveraged relationships with gatekeepers in pop culture, like in 2018, when NDWA partnered with the Oscar-nominated film, Roma, which powerfully depicted the experiences of Mexican domestic workers.
"We were able to take one story in our culture and pry open the window for conversation [about domestic workers] and move towards actual solutions” —Ai-jen Poo
In short, bringing more players into the fold can expand your reach and bring your message to the broader public.
3. Balancing discomfort and care
Changing hearts and minds isn’t always comfortable. Many leaders emphasize the need to balance disruption with care—for their audiences and themselves.
Guaranteed income leader Aisha Nyandoro described this beautifully by reframing her role not as a solitary leader but as a “vessel” for a movement. That subtle shift enabled her to stay grounded and strategic in her efforts without losing sight of her humanity.
She also talked about taking the risk of being in new spaces and building bridges between communities, as well as practicing discernment while in them. She said: "If we are truly going to shift values, we sometimes have to talk with folks that don’t always share the same ideologies that we share. And we are going to have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable… I think, ‘How do we bring more people into this fight?’ [But] bringing people into the fight means that sometimes I have to actually take the fight to them, go to them and be where they are.”
This demands not just strategy, but self-awareness. For example, sometimes people expect activists to share personal or traumatic stories to justify their work, which can sometimes veer into what Aisha and others have called “poverty porn.”
So leaders must be able to discern when, how, and if to share their most vulnerable experiences—or those of the people they serve—in ways that feel grounded, emotionally safe, and self-directed.
Shifting narrative power
Moving new ideas into the public square requires a willingness to challenge assumptions about who should tell stories and how they are told. Leadership doesn’t always wear a suit. It doesn’t always speak with polished rhetoric. It’s usually not done alone. It can be rebellious, collaborative, and strategically discerning. Those who shape public conversations need to think differently. And so do those of us who consume what is in the public square because our likes and views feed algorithms that ensure which voices and narratives dominate.
Shaping authentic narratives also requires nurturing the people behind them. That means investing in leaders—not just as individuals, but as ecosystems—helping them uncover their innate gifts and connecting them with platforms and gatekeepers who can amplify their work.
That is our mission at FRESH, where we support women and people of color—two groups historically left off the public stage. We know that the wisdom of their lived experiences is the secret sauce for shifting narratives around equity and justice and turning vision into impact.
Read the “Flipping the Script” report here and dive into stories of these and other remarkable leaders in our Greenroom podcast.
About the Author
Vanessa Valenti is co-founder and CEO of FRESH Speakers, a next-generation speakers bureau, uniquely representing women and people of color, two groups historically left off the public stage.