Summary

FrameWorks Institute is a nonprofit communications research organization that studies public mindsets and produces evidence-based framing resources for social change organizations. Its work focuses on how to communicate about social issues in ways that shift thinking and create political will for change.

Body

https://frameworksinstitute.org

FrameWorks Institute collaborates with storytellers, organizations, and coalitions to shift mindsets, change systems, and create a more just world [source: frameworks-institute]. The institute’s approach combines research on public mindsets with practical framing strategy — it does notadvocate for particular policy positions but rather equips organizations with the communicative tools to make their case effectively [source: frameworks-institute].

FrameWorks’ core offering is its library of framing guides, toolkits, and research reports organized by issue area — including government and democracy, economic justice, health, child development, racial justice, and aging [source: frameworks-institute]. Each resource translates original empirical research into practitioner-ready communication strategy [source: frameworks-institute].

A recurring theme across FrameWorks’ publications is the distinction between values and facts in public communication: research shows that effective advocacy leads with shared values rather than data, a principle FrameWorks calls the “values-first” approach [source: frameworks-institute]. The institute’s publications stress that facts alone rarely shift opinion; narratives must activate value systems that audiences already hold [source: frameworks-institute].

FrameWorks has produced specific reframing resources on economic justice, government and democracy, and artificial intelligence — identifying the “cultural mindsets” that block progress on these issues and providing tested alternative frames [source: frameworks-institute].

Use it for

Developing messaging and framing strategies; understanding why certain arguments resonate and others backfire; training campaign communicators in values-based narrative construction; producing framing guides for coalition partners.

Related

• campaigns-vs-movements
• citizen-lobbying
• civil-resistance
• coalition-building
• constructive-programme
• framing-and-narrative
• incidencia-politica
• pillars-of-support
• power-mapping
• spectrum-of-allies
• the-campaign-cycle
• the-tactic-star
• theory-of-change
• three-and-a-half-percent-rule

Open Questions

Does FrameWorks publish a general “advocacy framing toolkit” that could serve as the wiki’s primary source for the messaging/framing method page? Is there a specific resource on Theory of Change or logic model communication? License for reproducing excerpts needs clarification before using direct quotes.