Funders Initiative for Civil Society | Countering extreme right narratives: learning from the Hive community

“Because the first step toward change is not to lose the ability to dream and imagine other worlds”

In 2022, as part of its ambitious co-design process, the Global Narrative Hive (the Hive) made grants to a cohort of nine organisations under the Building Common Cause grant programme. These grants were a one-off, given for the funded groups to experiment with – and for the Hive to learn from – new approaches to building narrative infrastructure that would support movements in resisting anti-rights and fascist actors, develop solidarity, and create and disseminate powerful shared narratives.

We are proud to share the Hive’s report from this experimental round of grants: Countering extreme right narratives across movements: learning from experimentation.

The report shares reflections and learnings from participating activists and Hive staff, captured over the course of the programme and at two virtual learning sessions (which were co-facilitated by Hive Community Manager Fenya Fischler and consultant Alejandra Sarda). These sessions offered connection, deep reflection, learning from each other’s contexts, what worked, what failed and what funders can do to better support movements and the creation of narrative infrastructure.

“There is value in experimentation. The only way to find solutions to problems – for those who don’t have established formulas – is to define a hypothesis and try it without fear of failure. The failure contains information that helps to adjust the hypothesis”

This report contributes to the emergent field of practice on resourcing narrative experimentation, for which the community of funders is growing. It highlights the crucial importance of creativity and experimentation, as well as building narrative communities, through networks such as the Hive, where activists can learn together.

As one participant told the Hive,

“The words I would say to funders are: We are able to come together, share, dream, vision, strategise. There is power and magic that results when we have time and space to do all that in community with others”

You can read the report – including five key lessons for funders – here
in English. 

The report is also available in French and Spanish. The text of the report is also available in Arabic, Hindi and Russian. 

The Global Narrative Hive is a new network working to connect and grow the global ecosystem of activists and campaigners, communications workers, researchers, artists, journalists, and many others using narratives to advance democracy, human rights, social justice, and environmental protection.

You can find out more about the Global Narrative Hive through their micro site, as well as their LinkedIn page.

FICS is proud to incubate the Hive as part of our commitment to supporting movements and funders to challenge the growing social and political power of anti-rights actors and the ways in which they shrink civic space.