Making Waves: A Guide to Cultural Strategy

In the heady times of Barack Obama’s first term, a group of social change leaders and creative producers — Jeff Chang, Ian Inaba, Alexis McGill Johnson, Brian Komar, Liz Manne, Erin Potts, Favianna Rodriguez, Yosi Sergant, and Jessy Tolkan — joined together to form The Culture Group. Friends and fellow travellers at the intersection of culture and progressive politics, our goal was to advance progressive change through expansive, strategic, and values-driven cultural organizing. 

When we began, we didn’t realize we were seeding and beginning to formalize a new field of practice — “cultural strategy” — one that today enjoys dedicated organizations, staff positions, and funding streams throughout the social justice sphere. We were well aware that the arts, including popular entertainment, had long played a powerful role in introducing new perspectives and advancing the cause of social change. The Culture Group’s efforts built on (literally!) millenia of creative activism — our innovation was to apply rigorous research, strategy, and planning to the union of arts and culture, on the one hand, and activities that advance social change on the other. Our theory of change was that intentional partnerships of socially conscious artists, advocacy groups, organizers, and funders can mean the difference between isolated campaign wins and transformative social change. 

Published in 2014 as the culminating project of The Culture Group’s collaboration, Making Waves: A Guide to Cultural Strategy is an educational guidebook that explains the concept of cultural strategy — how it works, and why it matters — to help advocacy organizations, foundations, organizers, and artist activists effectively integrate cultural strategy into their social change work. 

Editorial Director: Liz Manne

Editorial Team: Jeff Chang, Gan Golan, Aly Massoud, Luz Ortiz, Meredith Osborne, Favianna Rodriguez, Yosi Sergant, Emily Smith, Jessy Tolkan

Funders: Arca Foundation, Compton Foundation, Ford Foundation, General Services Foundation, The McKay Foundation, The Nathan Cummings Foundation, Open Society Foundations, Unbound Philanthropy