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Statement of Purpose

False and harmful narratives about why people experience economic mobility are prevalent in the U.S.’ popular culture, media, and policy discourse. These narratives can distort the design of investments, policies, and programs that purport to support mobility from poverty, by grounding these efforts in incorrect or exclusionary assumptions. The most prominent of these narratives is the misperception that an individual or a community’s economic outcomes depend primarily on their personal effort and deservingness, rather than on the multitude of life experiences and systems to which they have been exposed.

As part of our commitment to challenge and replace this narrative with a more factual public understanding of economic mobility and economic exclusion, Camber Collective issues this Call for Interest to organizations who seek to evolve this narrative among defined audiences or localities.

Five organizations who respond to this Call will each receive a grant of $30,000 to design and launch a digital pilot initiative for narrative change. These organizations will also receive free technical support from Camber Collective’s Shared Prosperity advisorsto guide the design, implementation, and impact measurement of these initiatives. The entire process from grant disbursement (October 2024) to final impact measurement and learnings (January 2025) will be completed within three months. This expedited timeline is intended to generate initial hypotheses and potential ‘proofs of concept’ to guide larger-scale narrative change work in the future.

Respondents to this Call should seek to seed new narratives around economic mobility by drawing upon data from Camber Collective’s Mobility Experiences research to convey how unequal life experiences, including due to systemic barriers, heavily impact power to come out of poverty.


Background

Camber Collective is a strategic advisory organization dedicated to creating a thriving future for people and communities around the world – systemically, sustainably, and equitably. In partnership with the Gates Foundation, Camber has released seminal research on 28 life experiences — the Mobility Experiences — that have a proven impact on lifetime income. These experiences span six domains (education, financial well-being, community interactions, career progression, social/familial relationships, physical/mental health) from birth through adulthood and have varying quantified impacts. Crucially, the research also includes Americans’ perspectives on the value of the Mobility Experiences in their lives, and on economic mobility in general, via the results of a national survey.

One purpose of this research is to bring supporting data and stories to the ongoing work of narrative changemakers who seek to replace harmful economic mobility narratives with more accurate narratives on the holistic determinants of economic exclusion (for some) and mobility (for others).

A small selection of illustrative findings from the Mobility Experiences research that support these narrative evolutions includes the following:

• Many life experiences not commonly assumed to impact lifetime income can have outsized effects, such as receiving mentorship in adolescence (25% impact on lifetime income).

• Impact of life experiences outside of one’s own control, such as:

  • Being born a healthy birth weight: 10% impact on lifetime income

  • Growing up/living in a high mobility neighborhood: 7% impact on lifetime income

• Some of the Mobility Experiences which Americans seek most support in accessing suggest that economic mobility is not simply about immediate monetary benefit, but also about experiencing a life of power/autonomy and/or belonging, backed by supportive systems. These include:

  • Having low exposure to traumatic experiences, including ACES: 79% of respondents

  • Accessing care for physical and mental health conditions: 74% of respondents

Objectives 

Each organization will receive a $30,000 grant to pilot or grow an online/digital narrative change initiative that seeks to impact economic mobility perceptions among a defined audience group or geographic locality/community in the U.S., with freedom to tailor usage of funds as needed. Proposals should aim to shift perceptions as follows:

Harmful Perception: Economic success depends on personal drive and decisions. Anyone with the will to ‘pull themselves up by the bootstraps’ can access the 'American Dream'. 

Shift: Economic outcomes are impacted by a multitude of life experiences and systemic factors — many outside of an individual’s own control. Positive combinations of life experiences and systems set some people up to consistently grow their lifetime income when paired with individual effort. Harmful combinations place lifelong constraints on the income potential of others, and can only rarely be overcome through individual effort alone.

The Mobility Experiences research further supports:

• Access to public benefits, supportive programs, scholarships, and other types of financial resources provide a critical safety net and launchpad to access economic mobility, especially for low-income individuals, People of Color, immigrants, and other minority groups.

• There is no one-person or one-solution approach to poverty, as there are a multitude of life experiences that contribute to economic mobility, from birth to adulthood.

• Lived experiences and insights from those most affected by poverty are important to shaping effective policies and programs for economic mobility which include not only income & wealth building, but also pathways to autonomy, power, and social capital.

Commitment to Equity

Camber is committed to systemic solutions that create equitable, regenerative impact. Our approach seeks to explicitly center people, especially those who have historically been excluded from setting the direction for change, in social impact solutions. We seek to work not only with philanthropic, public, and private entities but also with those who aim to reduce the harmful impacts of structural racism, discrimination, and institutional exclusion on the economic mobility of populations that have been under-resourced. We appreciate that these are complex issues that must be addressed with intentionality and precision, and as such, prioritize partners who share an authentic commitment to equity in their own work.

 
Structure and Scope

This grant will be executed in three key phases:

1. Designing a Narrative Change Pilot Initiative

Build a comprehensive strategy that includes identifying key messages and stories, target audiences, and channels through which your narrative will be communicated and defining the new narrative you seek to seed or scale.

2. Executing the Pilot

Implement narrative change strategy by creating and distributing online content that engages the target audience(s) across strategically selected digital platforms. This could involve producing audio, video, or text materials; running advertisements; hosting virtual events; or leveraging other digital tools that strengthen your reach.

3. Measuring and Evaluating the Pilot.

Assess the effectiveness of your initiative by setting up key performance indicators (KPIs), collecting data on audience engagement, and measuring shifts in perceptions or behaviors. Utilize this data to refine the approach and improve the long-term narrative impact of your initiative.

In addition to the $30,000 grant, you will receive ongoing technical support from Camber’s field advisory team throughout each phase of your initiative, with freedom to engage Camber to support brainstorming, development, and monitoring of the initiative to the extent desired. The nature of this engagement will be tailored as part of your grant, with particular focus on supporting you during the design and evaluation phases (Objectives 1 and 3).

Example Narrative Change Initiatives:

This grant is designed to offer grantees significant flexibility to design the subject, format, and target audience of their own digital narrative change initiative. Example formats could include: 

Social Media Campaigns, Online PSA Campaigns, Digital Workshops or Speaker Series, Videos, Podcasts etc.  

Note: These examples are meant to provide further context on the intention of this grant and prompt ideas for execution; we encourage thoughtful creativity to best suit your chosen context. 

Applicant Evaluation Criteria

We seek to partner with organizations that align with our goal of advancing economic mobility by seeding more accurate and inclusive narratives. Specifically, we are interested in organizations that meet the following criteria: 

Capacity to Utilize the Grant: Organizations must be equipped to absorb and effectively utilize the full grant amount within a short timeframe akin to a design and implementation ‘sprint’ or pilot. This includes having the staff equipped with the time and expertise required to co-design a narrative change initiative.

Interest in issues related to Mobility Experiences: Organizations should be interested in pursuing a narrative change initiative that is directly informed by the Mobility Experiences findings. The full list of experiences can be found here.

Organizations with a Defined, Sizeable Reach: We are interested in partnering with established organizations that have a strong presence and/or a targeted audience in mind. These organizations should be looking to enhance or scale an existing or launch & build a new narrative change effort to reach a broad audience by testing new approaches.

United States Focus: The narrative initiative should target American populations and should focus on issues pertinent to the US context (including localized contexts within the US where desired).

Availability for Campaign Timing: Organizations must be available to undertake the initiative this year (2024), ending by January, 2025. 

We recognize that impactful narrative change can come from many different types of organizations. If your organization doesn’t neatly fit into these categories, but you believe you have the ability & capacity to drive meaningful change through narrative work, we encourage you to apply. We are open to partners with creative approaches to advancing economic mobility for all.

Logistics This engagement will last approximately 10-14 weeks. Please ensure availability from your team for the full duration of the engagement. Please see below for key dates:

• Applications will be accepted & reviewed on a rolling basis, closing at midnight (PST) on September 20, 2024
  
  Note: Applicants are encouraged to apply as soon as they are able; applications will be reviewed as they come in and may be fully allocated before the September 20th deadline.

• Finalist interviews will occur in mid to late September

• Grantees will be announced & grants will be issued in early October

• Initiative design (and technical assistance) begins in mid October

• Narrative initiative will conclude and evaluation results reported by early to mid January

For any questions, concerns, or technical issues, please contact [email protected].

Apply Here 

Learning Resources

See below for additional information on narrative change projects, best practices and/or economic mobility.

Harmony Labs Narrative Observatory Project

ORS Measuring Narrative Change Report

Good/Upworthy’s Public Perceptions & Narratives Around Poverty in the U.S.

Framework’s Institute: Talking about Poverty Report

National Domestic Worker’s Alliance Scaling Economic Mobility Narrative Change