Research
Our work is backed up with research and investigation into the topics with which we work. Here are a few examples and thought starters from the team.
ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Publication: Rethink, Reframe, Redefine: Co-Creation & Storytelling
This project was designed to shift the dial in terms of who has the power to make editorial decisions in the sharing of humanitarian stories for fundraising. The research uses a model devised by Jess Crombie called Contributor Centred Storytelling (CCS) to facilitate UNHCR’s ambition to prioritise refugee-led storytelling.
Together, over the past two years UNHCR and Crombie have developed, tested and delivered a way of working that prioritises the choices and preferences of people with lived experience, and still delivers an effective fundraising product.
True co-creation requires the sharing of narrative control. This can feel daunting, and risky. But to claim to be co-creating stories we must share power, as co-creation is equitable and not tokenistic.
You hear me, are you listening?
in this article Edward Ademolu and Jess Crombie delve into the ethical complexities of humanitarian storytelling, focusing on the impact of fundraising communications for UK African diasporic communities and those featured in these materials. They explore ways to responsibly negotiate these complexities and empower disenfranchised communities in representation practices.
They highlight challenges and opportunities in shifting power dynamics in INGO content creation, aiming to inspire a more accountable approach prioritising the voices of marginalised communities in shaping representation practices. The discussion also engages with the messy realities and challenges that determine whether, and if so, how, this change happens in practice.
LONGER READ
Publication: The ethics of using AI in fundraising
Artificial intelligence (AI) offers exciting opportunities for charities and nonprofits, from automating administrative tasks to gaining insights from data. However, consideration of how it should be used in fundraising has focused mainly on practical applications, with less thought given to the ethical implications that might arise from its use.
When attention does turn to the ethics of using AI for fundraising, the focus is often on how generic ethical issues about AI might also apply to fundraising. But AI will throw up ethical issues and challenges that are unique to fundraising and the nonprofit sector.
This project considers two related but separate questions:
1. What ethical issues are associated with using AI in fundraising?
2. Can AI be used to resolve ethical dilemmas in fundraising?
LONGER READ
Publication: A Conversation about "Doing" and Being "Done To" in Humanitarian Storytelling
This co-authored article is the result of a series of conversations between Arash Bordbar and Jess Crombie.
During the process of working together to develop the UNHCR ethical communications policy, their conversations revealed a shared interest in the power of stories, but also a recognition of the inequalities in the humanitarian sector in terms of who has the power to shape and share narratives about affected populations and individuals. The title of this essay is borrowed from Jessica Benjamin who, in her text exploring intersubjective psychoanalysis, describes the basic building blocks of connection as understanding “whether doing is with or to”. A theme running through this conversation is how to complicate who falls into the roles of “doer” and “done to”, so that “doing with” becomes the norm.
ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Publication: Who owns the story?
The ‘Who Owns the Story?’ study, created in partnership with David Girling from UEA, involved two appeal packs going head-to-head with supporters, the first time live financial responses to fundraising campaigns have been tested by a charity.
Charities and international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) are often criticised for the use of their imagery and messaging in fundraising appeals. While there have been many recent positive examples of shifts towards what is often known as responsible or ethical storytelling from Euro-US based charities telling stories about those outside this region, the power to decide what story is told and how still firmly resides within the fundraising countries. The researchers aimed to explore how UK audiences respond financially and emotionally to stories of poverty developed and told directly by the image ‘subject’ in their own words, as opposed to fundraising materials designed by the charity.
LONGER READ
Publication: “The sweetest songs” - ethical framing in fundraising
Much of the discussion on the ethics of framing service users in fundraising and marketing materials focuses on this ethical dilemma: Do the means of using negative framing – which, it is argued, more effectively raise money – justify that end – even if they cause harm by stereotyping and 'othering' the people framed, rob them of their dignity; and fail to engage people in long-term solutions.
Attempts to find the right balance between these two ethical poles have proved elusive. This paper posits a new ethical solution by removing these two poles from the equation and making the ethicality of fundraising frames contingent on the voice and agency of service users/contributors to tell their own stories and contribute to their own framing. As the Niger proverb says: "A song sounds sweeter from the author's mouth".
LONGER READ
Publication: Putting the contributor centre frame. What the people in our pictures think about the way we tell their stories
Putting the contributor centre frame is a green paper published by the think tank Rogare in May 2020. In this paper, number three in the ‘You’ve been reframed’ series, I assess all the research available, looking at what contributors think about their representations in charity communications. A digested and easy to read trip through this topic.
SHORTER READ
Article: Anticipated and
unanticipated voices
This essay was commissioned by the Imperial War Museum to critically reflect on the content generated by the Provisional Semantics project and looks at wider ethical considerations in photography. This project recognised the need for additional context when we look at historical images of people whose names or thoughts have not been captured alongside the image. This acknowledged that the men pictured in this archive were not symbols or objects of colonialism, as they have been presented in these photographs, but humans full of all that fills a human.
LONGER READ
Publication: The people in the pictures
The People in the Pictures is a piece of research carried out between 2015 and 2017 in partnership with Siobhan Warrington from Oral Testimony Works. We investigated what those who feature in Save the Children’s communications materials think about the process of gathering their stories and their later portrayal. It is the largest study of its kind and the first to ask contributors for their opinions in these issues.
SHORTER READ
Blog: Informed consent - why conversations are crucial
If someone you had never met turned up at your house and started taking photos of you and your family how would you feel? In this blog myself and Tamsin Maunder try and answer this question and outline some practical suggestions for good consent processes.
