At a recent session hosted by YOCCF, screenwriter, producer, and strategist Sheridan (Sheri) Aguirre shared powerful insights into how United We Dream (UWD) uses cultural strategies to shift narratives and drive change. YOCCF is committed to building local power and learning about narrative best practices in the youth organizing ecosystem, which is why we invited UWD to share how they have shifted hearts and minds by leveraging collaboration and creative storytelling.
UWD’s approach starts with a visioning process to define core narrative threads – the overarching stories and values they want to promote. For example, some threads focus on themes like self-love, abundance and collective care. Critically, this visioning process involves deep engagement with staff, members, the board and the communities they serve.
Once the narrative threads are established, UWD designs creative tactics and cultural projects to bring those narratives to life in compelling ways. A key consideration is meeting their target audience – primarily youth of color – where they are consuming media and cultural content. UWD notes that engaging this audience leads to ripple effects. The youth could then engage their families, their communities and society at large.
One of UWD’s most successful projects has been the “No Borders, Just Flavors” web series. However, this series didn’t emerge out of nowhere — it was built upon years of UWD’s testing and experimentation with smaller projects like video recipe books and short documentaries.
Throughout this process, Sheri emphasized the importance of:
- Collaborating with members, artists and the creative community
- Giving artists freedom for authentic storytelling
- Testing different content and engagement approaches
- Focusing on joy, celebration and uplifting their audience
- Developing metrics to evaluate both quantitative and qualitative impact
Ultimately, the session drove home that creating effective narrative change strategies requires patience, experimentation, collaboration and a long-term commitment. It’s an iterative process of listening to communities, prototyping creative ideas and building upon what works.
For organizations looking to implement similar strategies, Sheri offered these tips for maximizing impact with limited resources:
- Start small with low/no-cost tactics like skits, memes, vlogs and more.
- Solicit and utilize user-generated content from your members and audience.
- Empower artists and creators by giving them agency in the creative process.
- Use both digital platforms and in-person activations to support your narratives.
- Allow narratives to evolve organically through the creative process.
- Trust and support artists to express their traditions and stories.
- Embrace joy and courage in artistic expression.
- Celebrate and uplift your audience — give them their flowers!
The presentation showcased how arts, culture and creativity can be powerful vehicles for narrative change work. By following UWD’s model of bold visioning, rigorous experimentation and deep community collaboration, impact organizations can develop resonant stories that inspire audiences and drive long-term change.