WHERE WE’VE BEEN
Over the past four years, Better to Speak has hosted community dialogue events, produced two podcast seasons, a zine on Black civic engagement, among other community advocacy initiatives for and in partnership with young Black folks in Washington, D.C., Metro-Atlanta, GA, elsewhere in the U.S. and across the Black diaspora.
In 2021, we took a break from most of our forward-facing programs to reflect on what we’ve done, dream up what could be possible for this platform in the future and strategize on how to bridge the gap between the two.
Here’s where we landed… 👇🏾
WHERE WE’RE GOING – THE STRATEGIC VISION
This Strategic Vision is a documented intention for a more focused and intentional iteration of Better to Speak. The goal is to pilot these goals, initiatives and programs over the next year, through the end of 2022 and gather comprehensive community feedback. Then, in 2023, we’ll report back to see what we were able to accomplish, present any updates to this Strategic Vision and take off from there.
For more information on our goals and priorities for 2022, check out the first of our community updates!
Strategic Priorities
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Content
With the support of a grant from Press On’s Southern Movement Media fund, we plan to expand our editorial content offerings to include published articles from contributing writers, as well as the continuation of Better to Speak: The Podcast.
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Community
To create opportunities for co-creation of our programming we will launch a community outreach campaign to engage our peers, seek out feedback to inform our offerings and build the foundation to establish Better to Speak as a co-operative membership organization.
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Capacity
Similarly, in order to engage our community in the way this strategy envisions, we must give it proper investment – financially and in terms of people-power – as well as the space, time and dedicated process to dream and put those dreams into action.
GET INVOLVED
We can’t accomplish these goals without tapping into the power of our network and community this year – will you join us?
Photo taken by David Robinson
CONTENT
With the support of a grant from Press On’s Southern Movement Media fund, we expanded our editorial content offerings to include published articles from contributing writers.
COMMUNITY
To prioritize creating opportunities for the co-creation of our programming, we launched a community outreach campaign to engage our peers, seek out feedback to inform our offerings and build the foundation to establish Better to Speak as a cooperatively-owned membership organization by 2023.
CAPACITY
Better to Speak cannot continue to engage our community in the way we envision if we don’t have the internal capacity and infrastructure to support that. To give this platform a shot at having meaningful long-term impact we must properly invest in it – financially, in our people power and systems, as well as in the space and time to put our dreams into action.
THE APPROACH
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Better to Speak is led by young Black folks who work at the intersection of social activism and media making. We approach this work with the understanding that it is:
Personal → We trust ourselves to know what we need to engage in this work and to understand the unique skills and knowledge we can contribute.
Internal → We maintain a peer-led space for and by Black youth to support other Black youth, we can support one another as we build the confidence, conviction, community, and capacity to engage in this work sustainably.
External → We document, amplify and embolden the voices and stories of young and emerging Black storytellers and changemakers working towards Black liberation through self and collective actualization.
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To hold space for peer-led community-building, leadership development and capacity-building through storytelling and social advocacy.
To build narrative power among Black youth and young adults.
To build a sustainable platform that can overcome barriers to longevity that exist in Black media.
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There is a lot of media content and narrative around Gen Z and millennials in general that often don’t actually include or center our voices and stories – especially those of Black Gen Z and millennials.
This organization and its initiatives aim to connect Black youth and young adults to storytelling and advocacy tools to tell our own stories and communicate our political priorities, demands and desires
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Nearly three years into the COVID pandemic, and two years after the racial reckoning of 2020, this organization and its initiatives also aim to follow up on many of the campaign, legislative and corporate promises made to Black communities and Black youth in particular and assess their progress by our standards.
Additionally, we aim to organize Black youth and young adults through grassroots storytelling to create the infrastructure to engage our peers beyond election cycles, so that we can maintain progress on our collective priorities and individual leadership development.
THE VISION
Black Youth-Led Movement Media Platform
Starting in 2022, Better to Speak will launch its editorial media platform and relaunch Better to Speak: The Podcast to begin producing consistent content across its platforms. This will be accomplished with the support of Press On’s Southern Movement Media Fund grant.
By Jan. 2023 Better to Speak will review our accomplishments and the impact of our pilot programs in 2022. Specifically, we will review the results of our grant from the Southern Movement Media fund grant and refine our content strategy.
Cooperative Community of Practice
Starting in 2022, Better to Speak will pilot consistent membership programming and offerings – including community dialogue events, workshops, online toolkits and resources, etc. Additionally, we will prioritize seeking stakeholder/community feedback from all of our offerings to inform and refine strategies and approaches.
By Jan. 2023 Better to Speak will review our accomplishments and the impact of our pilot programs in 2022. This will evaluate piloted approaches to community outreach – including programs through content marketing, brand awareness/thought leadership and peer-to-peer outreach through SMS campaigns.
Home for Black Youth Narrative Power-Building
Starting in 2022, Better to Speak will launch a community outreach and narrative power-building campaign called “State of the Young Black Advocate.”
This campaign will include a survey of Black youth and young adults to assess narratives that we hold about ourselves individually and collectively.
By Jan. 2023 Better to Speak will review the results from our 2022 study. This will include the production of a whitepaper that explores and establishes a benchmark for narratives, themes and demands of Black youth and young adults.
These results will also serve a dual purpose as a guide for our organizational programs and offerings, and act as a launch point for potential narrative change work and advocacy down the line that will build on what we start in 2022.