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Hope-based communications
Hope-based communications (or hope-based comms) is an approach to social change campaigning. The approach was developed from 2017 to 2019 and is currently implemented in diverse social justice campaigns worldwide. Hope-based communications is based on the idea that activists should focus more on talking about what they stand for, their values, and their ideas rather than reacting to or criticizing their opponents.

History and development
Amid the rise of populism in 2016, social movements began taking the role of emotions in communications more seriously, with communications experts in several fields calling for a more positive approach or framing that makes people believe change is possible, including in environmental activism, migration, and human rights.

In 2018, Harvard University professor and human rights researcher Kathryn Sikkink published Evidence for Hope. In this book, Sikkink demonstrates that "in the long term, human rights movements have been vastly effective," and cites many historical examples of successes in the global struggle for human rights. Sikkink's research, among others, provided proof positive for the rationale behind the hope-based approach, further driving it's relevance to social change campaigning. This research is also supported by the work of journalist and author Rutger Bregman, who wrote "Humankind: A hopeful history" about the importance and realism of maintaining hope in humanity from a historical perspective.

Many of the concepts behind hope-based communications draw inspiration from the work of American communications expert Anat Shenker-Osorio, who has published multiple guides for communicators, e.g. on how to talk about human rights, and created a handbook for progressive communicators in partnership with the Open Society Foundation and the Center for Community Change. Her ideas of "leading with shared values," and "create something good, don't merely reduce something bad" are echoed in the hope-based communications approach.

Overview
Applying hope-based communications involves making five narrative shifts, whether in storytelling, communications or strategy.

The five shifts

 * 1) From fear to hope: raising the possibility for a better world and illustrating what it may look like
 * 2) From what you are against to what you stand for: celebrate the things you want to see in the world
 * 3) From problems to solutions: highlight the possibility and desireability of creative solutions
 * 4) From threats to opportunities: create inclusive and cross-cutting content to engage a broad audience
 * 5) From victims to heroes: celebrate humanity and demonstrate solidarity with all, including marginalized groups

To make the approach more effective, hope-based communications places an emphasis on linking each of these shifts to values like compassion, kindness, empathy, community, and humor. This strategy is further recommended by research from the Common Cause Foundation.

Open-Global Rights published a full guide to Hope-based communications in 2018. In November 2019 a virtual hope-based network was founded in Berlin, where all communicators are welcome to participate in a pledge to implement the five shifts in their work.

The approach is further based in brain science research on human emotional and perceptional responses to language, as described by Laura Ligouri, a leading neurobiologist at the nonprofit Mindbridge. Ligouri's research indicates that emphasizing human rights abuses may in fact perpetuate them, providing an ethical and logical impetus for shifting away from abuse-centered and toward hope-based narratives.

Examples of hope-based comms in action
Developed at Amnesty International, the hope-based approach has been applied to campaigns in New Zealand, Brazil, Denmark and the USA. In response to the Coronavirus pandemic, the hope-based approach was also applied to an international artivist visual campaign called #SpringofHope in April and May of 2020, in partnership with Fine Acts, a non-profit organization founded by a TED Fellow. The approach is also being integrated into organizations' annual reports. The International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) is one leading example. The ISHR's Annual Report, published on April 4, 2020, places a strong emphasis on hope: "There are plenty of reasons for anxiety and concern. But we see even more reasons for ambition and hope."