During the Ikhala Trust’s Asset Based Community Driven Development (or ABCD) Festival held in November, our lead facilitator, Dena Lomofsky, kept reminding us that what we write about should be something even our grandmothers would understand – take out all of the jargon and keep it simple, so it appeals to everyone. This is never easy for those of us who love jargon, but this same sentiment was also shared this week in Johannesburg at an ABCD Indaba with government officials, where it became clear that language can alienate people and put them off. Telling our story So, mindful of this, at...

As part of the weaving conversations held around the Pathways to Power Symposium, the GFCF was delighted to partner with Jennifer Lentfer of How Matters, who hosted a series of four online dialogues entitled Changing the narrative: Weaving #ShiftThePower throughout the #Globaldev sector. This dialogue series, featuring contributions from a range of communicators from around the world and attracting around 50 participants per dialogue, considered how organizations’ communications strategies, framing, and tactics can support collective efforts to #ShiftThePower in aid, global development, and international philanthropy. Charitable portrayals of “helping” often conjure up victimhood and passivity in order to validate the assistance being...