Let’s file SmartMeme under my oft-used category of “story-based organizations I can’t believe I didn’t know existed until now.” And, yeesh, SmartMeme has been around since 2002.

I encountered SmartMeme in a post on the blog Waging Nonviolence entitled SmartMeme pioneers social change storytelling, in which Bryan Farrell interviewed SmartMeme co-founder Patrick Reinsborough and co-director Doyle Canning, who are also authors of Re:Imagining Change — How to Use Story-based Strategy to Win Campaigns, Build Movements, and Change the World.

I’m not sure anything on SmartMeme’s own site explains what the organization does — its unique blending of story and meme — as well as Reinsborough describes it in the interview with Farrell:

We come to social change storytelling from the perspective that humans are narrative animals who make meaning of the world around us through narrative. Storytelling has always been a powerful tool for organizers and movement builders to name problems, unite constituencies, and mobilize people towards solutions. But how does a story become well known? How does a new idea spread? How can we challenge the assumptions that prop up the status quo and create momentum for fundamental social change? SmartMeme was founded to explore these kind of questions in order to help progressive movements communicate compelling stories about the more democratic, just, ecologically sane future so many of us are working to build.

We were interested in combining traditional grassroots organizing with new strategies to change the dominant culture. Our work isn’t just about telling new or historically marginalized stories, it’s also about changing the existing story — reframing issues and creating political space for new ideas.

And how does the meme concept fit in? Reinsborough explains:

A meme is like a gene of the culture that spreads from mind to mind, generation to generation; a contagious information pattern; an idea virus. Anything that can spread can be thought of as a meme: from cultural rituals like shaking hands to buzz words and slogans (Just Do it! No Blood for Oil!) to the latest fashion trend of pop-song lyric. The definition we use in our story-based strategy trainings is that a meme is a capsule for a story to spread.

A terrific article on the SmartMeme site, Storytelling as Social Change,

The article offers a story-based strategy framework that I suspect we can apply to change of all kinds — from social change to personal change:

The Story-Based Strategy Framework

Working through the story-based strategy framework can create a common narrative to integrate messaging, media, advocacy and organizing efforts by focusing on a few key cornerstones of storytelling:

The Conflict: What is the problem we are addressing? How is it framed? What is emphasized and what is avoided? How can we change the framing?

The Characters: Who are the characters in our story? This can be a profound organizing question: Who are “we?” Are we amplifying the voices of the most impacted people? Who are the other characters in the story?

Show Don’t Tell: What is the imagery of this story — what pictures linger in our minds? Are there anecdotes that we tell people to show them what we’re talking about? What about songs? Poems? Metaphors that describe the issue?

Foreshadowing: What is our vision of resolution to the conflict? What is our solution to the problem? How do make the future we desire seem inevitable?

Assumptions: What are the assumptions underlying the story we want to change? How can we expose and challenge them? What assumptions and core values do we share that unite our communities around a common vision?

I am excited to check out the book and learn more about the organization.