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Section 3

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Chapter 14

Values are bedrock

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​Values are the bedrock of worldviews, shaping decisions, communities, and behaviors. To move stakeholders, campaigns must appeal to values they already prioritize—especially community (ethics, connection) and autonomy (openness to change).

Reading a Compass
A stakeholder will want to act if we appeal to their values. 

 

Just as the moon, winds, and ocean currents shape the seas, the ocean floor (bedrock) also plays a crucial role by affecting the density and temperature of the water above it. 

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Values are the bedrock or foundation of our worldview. They shape our behaviors, the communities we join, and even the people and media that set the rules for our world. 

 

Value priorities are our preferred values. They serve as standards, guiding us in deciding what is good or worthwhile. They can change slowly, or quickly if in a crisis where for example someone’s value priority of altruism might shift in order to put food on the table for their family. 

 

As campaigners and communicators, our target audience may not always prioritize the same values as us. As one strategic comms expert offered: “Remember: We are not the audience.”  Our task is to appeal to certain value priorities in certain situations.

 

We can frame messages to bring different values to the fore, helping to strengthen our audience’s ability to experience and use those values in their own decision-making.

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“You can't get people to change, except in the direction that they want to change.”

 
Milton Rokeach / Shalom Schwarz

 

We have created a guide to framing messages for different relationships and audiences based on their values, adapted from the work of Liz Manne and Harmony Labs, based on Shalom Schwarz. This guide starts by laying out four areas of value priorities:
 

  • Autonomy (I): Openness to change (values like hedonism, stimulation, self-direction). These values prioritize seeking new experiences.

  • Community (Us): Self-transcendence (values like universalism, benevolence). These values prioritize ethics, new ideas, and connecting actions to values.

  • Authority (Me): Self-enhancement (values like achievement, power). These values prioritize personal success and influence.

  • Order (We): Conservation (values like security, conformity, tradition). These values prioritize stability and self-esteem.

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This framework helps us identify the values of key relationships and individuals that maintain the system’s equilibrium. It also guides us in framing our messages to influence these relationships and stakeholders.
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“Feed what you want to grow, not what you want to fight - Building narrative power demands building new vocabularies. This requires making people familiar with your ideas rather than using old, harmful frames and tropes to get your point across.”

 

Thomas Coombes

 

To galvanize action for social or environmental change, we must appeal to the bigger than self intrinsic values of community (self-transcendence) and autonomy (openness to change). If we try to appeal just to self-interest or social status values, we are being incoherent with our mission, less effective and not building the changes we want to see.

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When combined with other tools discussed in this Section, we have a comprehensive way to target and frame all our messaging.

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Read more: Liz Manne and Harmony Labs’ Narrative Observatory on audiences, with examples from the USA: https://narrativeobservatory.org/audiences  
CONCEPT

Ten Basic Personal Values

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Shalom Schwarz identified ten basic personal values identifiable across multiple cultures: conformity, tradition, security, power, achievement, hedonism, stimulation, self-direction, universalism and benevolence. The Public Interest Research Centre (PIRC) created a values map to show where some of these values and their components are related. We recommend looking at the map to explore how close certain values are to each other. If a target audience prioritizes one value, it will be easiest to get them to prioritize another close to that value on the map. While helpful for considering groupings of values, we do not recommend it for targeted campaign planning purposes.

​Sources:
*The values map and wheel are both from: Holmes T., Blackmore, E., Hawkins, R. and Wakeford, T. (2011), The Common Cause Handbook: Public Interest Research Centre https://publicinterest.org.uk/download/values/Common%20Cause%20Handbook.pdf 
STORY

Religious Values & Climate Change, Indonesia

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Religion has proven to be a powerful lens, or worldview, through which people organize in Indonesia, particularly during elections like the 2019 Presidential Election. Indonesia is highly vulnerable to climate change, experiencing climate-related impacts and disasters annually, but there is not yet a unifying narrative around the drivers of and solutions to the climate crisis. With 1,340 ethnic groups and over 700 local languages, defining and identifying climate change the way that Western media and scientists do is challenging. It is liminal—existing between different beliefs and at the edges of understanding. While some local languages can describe climate phenomena as “pancaroba”, “pagebluk” or “paceklik,” there is no single term that encapsulates the scientific concept of climate change.

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In Indonesia, national climate audience research revealed that Indonesians place greater trust in local government figures and faith leaders over national government officials or NGOs. With 87% of the population being Sunni Muslim, Islam plays a significant role in shaping cultural and political dynamics. However, communicating the urgency of climate change in 2019 was challenging due to the diverse cultural and linguistic landscape, where Western scientific terminology wasn't easily understood or accepted.

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The MOSAIC (Muslims for Shared Actions on Climate Impact) campaign formed to mobilize Indonesians for climate action by aligning the message with their existing values and belief systems. The campaign needed to effectively engage the population by leveraging the values of Community (self-transcendence), prioritizing ethics, new ideas, and connecting actions to values. This approach emphasized the ethical responsibility of Muslims to protect the environment, connecting climate action with Islamic teachings on stewardship and benevolence.

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The campaign did this through

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  1. Ecosystem Mapping and Engagement: The campaign began with comprehensive ecosystem mapping to identify key players and understand their values, needs, and current actions. Significant Islamic organizations like Nahdlatul Ulama, Muhammadiyah, and the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) were identified as pivotal due to their influence and alignment with the values of community and benevolence. These organizations were engaged through dialogue and collaboration to promote environmental stewardship as a core Islamic value.

  2. Building Trust and Collaboration: Trust and collaboration were built through various convenings, including the organization of the "Kongres Umat Islam untuk Indonesia Lestari" (Muslims Congress for Sustainable Indonesia). 

  3. Triggering the Community values priority: 

    • This congress emphasized the ethical responsibility of Muslims to care for the environment, framing climate action as a moral imperative rooted in Islamic values.

    • The manifesto developed at the congress was endorsed by the vice president, a prominent Islamic leader, further reinforcing the message.

  4. Developing Initiatives: Following the congress, the campaign developed several initiatives aligned with the values of community and self-transcendence:

    • Islamic Philanthropy for Climate Funding: "Sedekah Energy" and "Forest Waqf" to encourage community-based environmental action, linking charitable giving with sustainability efforts.

    • Training and incubation projects: “Bengkel Hijrah Iklim” projects led by Islamic youth leaders to empower the next generation of environmental advocates.

    • Knowledge Hub: A "Fiqht for Just Energy Transition" to legitimize and socialize climate action within the Islamic community, ensuring that actions are grounded in religious teachings.

    • Social media platform: “Umat untuk Semesta” was a social media platform focused on the intersection of Islam and the environment, helping to spread the message of climate action as a communal and ethical responsibility.

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The campaign successfully

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  • Engaged millions of Muslims across Indonesia by connecting climate action with Islamic values of benevolence and community. 

  • Gained recognition from media outlets like AP, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. 

  • Got endorsed by the Indonesian Vice President and the Great Imam of Istiqlal, the biggest mosque in Southeast Asia. 

  • Laid the foundation for a sustainable, values-driven climate movement.

TOOL

Finding Bedrock

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Which values are driving your mission and driving the key stakeholders or relationships you need to influence? Are you appealing to the bigger than self values of community or autonomy? How might you tap into your audiences’ own bigger than self values?

 

Part 1

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  1. Draw the values chart on the left.

  2. Write on Post-Its and place on the chart: 

    • Your organization or campaign’s mission; 

    • The key relationship(s) that you need to influence; 

    • The deep loop elements that maintain the system; 

    • The communities that are most trusted by the key relationships; 

    • The messengers most trusted by the key relationships.

  3. Discuss where the Post-Its are clustered and where there are gaps. What does this tell you about the gaps in values that you need to cross in order for your targets to act? 

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Part 2

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Now, how might you frame your message to appeal to the community and autonomy values in your audiences? How could you get them to think bigger than themselves and take action?

 

  1. As a group, draft messages that could activate this value priority in your audience, in line with your campaign mission. 

  2. Consider how these messages could work within your existing campaign branding or messaging, advocacy and communications

  3. Seek opportunities to test these messages using the techniques in Chapter 15: Decisions are Learned and Chapter 16: Emotion is Oxygen.

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