GoodGeist
A podcast on sustainability, hosted by Damla Özlüer and Steve Connor, brought to you by the DNS Network. Looking at sustainability issues, communications, and featuring global guests from a wide variety of sectors such as business, NGOs and government.
GoodGeist
Hope-based Communications, with Thomas Coombs
Join us for a fascinating conversation with Thomas Coombs, human rights communicator, founder of Hope-Based Communications and former Head of Brand at Amnesty International.
"We were ticking all those boxes," Thomas reflects on his early career in cause-based media relations. "Getting huge amounts of media coverage, but where was the compassion and empathy?" he asks. This disconnect sparked his journey toward developing a methodology that would offer a new perspective on how human rights organisations communicate, if not for anyone involved in cause-related communications.
The insights driving Hope-Based Communications come from neuroscience: our brains are predictive machines that favour familiarity and reject the unfamiliar. For social movements, this means constantly showing people the world we want to create, not just highlighting what we oppose. "The story we tell today is the action people take tomorrow," Thomas emphasises, placing effective communication at the heart of social transformation.
Despite today's challenging global landscape—with human rights backlashes, climate crisis, and ongoing conflicts—Thomas maintains that hope becomes most essential in dark times. His grounded form of hope acknowledges reality while maintaining conviction that positive change remains possible through collective action.
Listen now to discover how you can transform your approach from merely raising awareness to fundamentally changing attitudes, behaviours, and culture.
Follow GoodGeist for more episodes on sustainability, communications and how creativity can help make the world a better place.
Good Geist, a podcast series on sustainability hosted by Damla Özler and Steve Connor, brought to you by the DNS Network.
Speaker 2:Hello, hello everyone, you are listening to Good Guys, the message on sustainability which is brought to you by the DNS Network, the global network of agencies dedicated to making the world a better place. This is Damla from Mira Agency, istanbul, and.
Speaker 3:This is Steve from Creative Concern in Manchester. This podcast series explores global sustainability issues, how they're communicated and what creativity can do to make positive change happen.
Speaker 2:So in this episode we're going to talk to Thomas Coombs, the founder of Hope-Based Communications, a community for changemakers anywhere in the world who want to try and develop a positive approach. Thomas is a global communication strategist who aims to make a difference by changing minds and helping NGOs keep pace with business and government PR operations.
Speaker 3:Excellent stuff. So, as a human rights communicator, thomas has worked in corporate public relations, government and NGO campaigns. Prior to being the head of Brand Amnesty International which has to be one of the coolest jobs in the world, let's face it. He worked as a speechwriter and press officer at the European Commission and Transparen the head of Brand Amnesty International, which has to be one of the coolest jobs in the world, let's face it. He worked as a speechwriter and press officer at the European Commission and Transparency International. Thomas developed an approach called Hope-Based Communications to help the human rights movement develop new narratives for social change. So, thomas, thank you so much for joining Dan and myself.
Speaker 4:Thanks so much for having me on. I'm really excited.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, it's brilliant, it's really good. So we always like to say with backstory um, thomas, before we go into hope-based communications as a sort of platform that you felt, tell us about your journey to here, to becoming a human rights communicator oh yeah, thanks.
Speaker 4:So the funny thing is I've been thinking so much about like my biography lately because you know, everyone is a founder this and a weaver that and I don't know how. And then my wife's like, oh, you can't just say you're a communications trainer, um, and so I kind of jokingly call myself the hope guy, because at amnesty when I started articulating this hope based stuff, people were like rolling their eyes and like, oh, thomas, you're so cheerful and like I was like guys, do you actually know who I? I'm like the grumpiest, most negative person here, and so I kind of used that title jokingly. But so that's a way of saying I've just well, basically the summary is which is kind of unavoidable is basically my family are Holocaust survivors, so I've always wanted to work in human rights. It was never really any question for me, that was just always what I wanted to do, and primarily because because you know it's, given what's happening in the world right now, it's really important to say for me what happened to my family was always never about just our group but all human beings, right, and so I was trying to build that career in in the NGO world, which I'm sure people know is quite hard to do, you know get those first jobs.
Speaker 4:And I feel like what's also helped me bring like neuroscience and psychology into this world of social change is the fact that I'm not really an expert in anything really you know which. I think a lot of communicators are those kind of generalists but so, yeah, I was. Communication felt like the right space for me in terms of social change, because it's about making people care. You know, I'm always thinking about people I grew up with in the west of Ireland and in Limerick City, like when I'm writing about EU policy or about human rights. Will those people actually get this and care? And so what it's always been about for me is you know again, how can I make people care so that these terrible things don't happen? And that's kind of where hope-based communication comes in, because around 2016, 2017, you know, I was again, like I said, this kind of very angry communicator Look at all the terrible stuff happening in the world. And this was that moment when I realized, oh, that's actually not working.
Speaker 2:Well, yep, and you especially have worked on really hard issues to communicate in your career. I mean, yes, as Steve said, it is the coolest job in the world, we think, but also I think it's one of the hardest jobs too. So, with your experience as a global communication strategist, can you paint us a picture of the last decade in human rights and responsible communications, what has been achieved and what went wrong, considering the rising backlash to international rights movements?
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's a really good question. I think the biggest challenge is what happened in the last decade is quite similar to what happened in the several decades before which. What I mean is I felt that in social change, communication, we haven't actually adapted to the internet. And I'll start. I'm speaking mainly about myself. You know, my work was writing press releases. I sure feel out of date these days watching, you know, younger comms people on social media. I can barely put an instagram reel together myself, um, but so.
Speaker 4:But the point is basically the idea was we, if we raise awareness about the bad things happening and we name and shame people for human rights violations, they will stop? Uh, and that was the idea that's written into human rights textbooks. Um, even, and we were going around doing this stuff without actually understanding the science of shame and the psychology. There's all this work happening in different fields that we're just not aware of and not looking at, and so that was my sort of aha moment in 2016, 2017. It's like oh, yeah, ok, we're actually well, you know a lot was going right, like we're getting huge amounts of media coverage and that's that's what you know. Back then was like, what made me proud was, you know, training a colleague, you know me to train them. Get them on al jazeera, bbc or cnn and they deliver a great interview, really powerful, hard-hitting. Look at this suffering. This is really bad. And we were ticking all those boxes, you know. So, in terms of kpis, we were really succeeding, but where was the compassion and empathy? And so, actually, the more we created this fear, the sense of crisis, actually we were not. People weren't ready to like I was watching, say, for example, like what really sends out to me is seeing, uh, chemical weapons being used on civilians in syria and I thought, okay, now everything will change, like we're going to have 10 cities in Trafalgar Square. There's going to be such an outpouring of welcome, and it didn't come. And that's basically.
Speaker 4:I think the big shift that's starting to happen in social change, communication is we're shifting from raising awareness to changing awareness. So it's not just enough that people know what's happening. We actually have to show people the change we want to see. I think maybe the thing that illustrates that trend is this idea of narrative change, which, again, I couldn't believe I'd never heard of it when I first, you know, found it, but then it just changed everything for me. Thinking about things that way, and so hopefully what this will turn into is that we're not just thinking of sort of volume of media hits or social engagement, but starting to think about what I've just sort of started calling ABC strategy. How do we change attitudes, behavior and culture?
Speaker 3:Goodness, mate, honestly, thomas, it's music to my ears. I remember I spent a bit like you, actually I the first 10 years of my career was pretty much cause based media relations, and I'll never forget that penny drop moment when a journalist said to me yeah, I think we had this really great climate change program and it's amazing solutions. And they said they said we're sorry, we, just we, we can't get you on the show. I said what you mean you can't get on the show? And said we've got nobody to argue against you, but it's a big story, it's really important. There's nobody to argue against you.
Speaker 3:And they gave me a glimpse into that kind of mediated universe where the only thing they care about is the noise of conflict and not any shift in awareness. It's fascinating. So take us a bit deeper into your methodology then, thomas. So you, you. It's a pragmatic approach. It's useful for policy environments, for advocacy, to go deeper into how you win support and what change actually happens as a result of of you working with people. So take us through. It might be we go a bit deeper into that abc that you were talking about just then yeah, I'd love to do that.
Speaker 4:So, basically, hope-based communication says it's based on this idea of five shifts that anyone can ask themselves, like you said at the start down there, and so maybe it's worth. Also, while we're looking back, like how this came about, was I'm at amnesty, particularly looking looking at people on the move, people fleeing the war in Syria, and I'm starting to realize, oh, we're using the wrong language, even the wrong words, the wrong, not just the wrong messages and telling the wrong stories to actually get people to like open their hearts, open their doors. And then I found is actually, oh, there's amazing messaging. So, for example, there's people in the United States who wrote this report called Hardwired, and there's an amazing communications expert called Nat Shenkrosorio who's really inspired a lot of what I'm doing. And it's okay. Look, their messaging is good to go and I would show it to my colleagues and they wouldn't use it. I'm sure that's very familiar to a lot of communications and agency people out there. And so I realized, ah, okay, okay, I can't just tell people to stop using this kind of fear-based, harmful language. How can I actually make them, um, you know, bring in their values, their solution? And I realized, oh, everyone just has to do it themselves. Because this key point with narrative, it's about constantly repeating our ideas, and you know, if we're going to be populist, we can't just talk about them all the time. We have to tell our own story. And so how are we going to do that? So, just organically, at Amnesty.
Speaker 4:Hobo's communication was born as a checklist and the idea was, whether you're a fundraiser, a researcher, a campaigner, and you put together your report or your social media posts and you yourself have, I actually said what I'm for in this post, not just what I'm against, and so that's the kind of core foundation is I'm still obviously like important role for comms people, but it's just that way of actually, if we want people to change, we can't just tell them what to say. It actually, you know, reflects also a lot about how we communicate outwards, but it was essentially almost applying a lot of that learning to colleagues. So, for example, we have this horrible habit of saying refugees are not criminals, which the basic lesson you know in narrative is that you're then connecting criminal and refugee, and I would go on. Hey guys, stop saying not a criminal. And they started using even more Right.
Speaker 4:So then I had to actually OK, I have to get them to figure out for themselves what that is, um, and then that that's like the basics of it, and then obviously it started growing into a methodology. People asked me to do workshops, so the basic stuff is it's like building your hope muscle, applying these shifts yourself so that whatever you're doing you can apply it. And I've realized actually in a way it's almost a way of also just that timeless challenge communicator's face, of making language simple. We always say, hey, lawyer, colleague, make that text simple. And they don't actually know what that means. So I realized accidentally it's actually also just an approach to help our colleagues write simpler language, but then we could also go into then. It's also a tool for actually developing strategies based on that attitude, behavior, culture.
Speaker 2:Wow, and we're on the topic of strategy, but you don published a guide on this methodology and also feature certified communicators in this area. Actually, in a way, the methodology itself is a campaign, so can you tell us how this works?
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's a really good point. I was again thinking the other day how do I describe it? Because I decided not to build like an agency or an ngo, and so we are this loose community and we're launching a new community training platform in september, again, because the idea is I want anyone to use it, even for profit, even a creative agencies like even ogilvy, can use it. That's fine for me because I really believe if people use the approach, it actually helps all of us spread. You know the world we want to see, um, but so, um, I was, yeah, actually realizing that it's, it's a method, it's a mindset and a movement, uh, all in one um, but yeah. So I think the key thing is this very key insight, I think, from brain science, which is um, and it's really starting to spread into the mainstream of culture now that our brains are predictive machines.
Speaker 4:The way we perceive the world is based on a prediction we make, based on what we already know. Now, what that means for social change is we are in primed like. Our instinct is to be suspicious of things that are unfamiliar and support what's familiar, and so, basically, if we don't take this radical change we want to bring about and put it in front of our audience. They never see it. It has no chance of happening, whether that's like welcome refugees, or say like conservative parents starting to welcome their children's gender, or whatever it is. And so much of the time all we do is say what we're against and we never actually put in front of people the thing we want to happen. And so this, I think, helps us explain a lot of what's going wrong in the world. But for communicators, that puts communications at the heart of social change, because literally the story we tell today is the action people take tomorrow.
Speaker 4:And so as I started doing these workshops, I've started to realize, you know my most of my career. My motivation was I'm against hate, I'm gonna call it out and shame it. And then I just, you know most of my career, my motivation was I'm against hate, I'm going to call it out and shame it. And then I just, you know, if I'm against hate, what am I for? I was like, oh, love, like, oh, I'm not watching Love Actually or something like that's not serious.
Speaker 4:And then you start reading the science. There's actually all this science about empathy and compassion. And how do you make group A have empathy and compassion for group B, and how do you make group A have empathy and compassion for group B? How do you make you know people treat each other more kindly? And so you know we don't take that stuff seriously. But actually there's all this science like this is these are muscles that we need to train, and so basically we can't just take for granted that. You know, basically the idea of just being kind to all people, no matter who they are, where they come from, it's just there. Naturally, that's work we have to do, and so the point is, all of us, as communicators and all other fields, we're actually all part of the same big campaign to spread the underlying mindset that underpins the world we want to see. And actually, really, I think, if you, you know, to really simplify it, what the debate today is it's about cruelty versus kindness that's wonderful, thomas the um.
Speaker 3:Well, as you're talking now, one of the challenges I often set before um clients when we're working with them is we look at their strategic objectives for a you know in our case quite often a sustainability program and uh, and just say which one of those objectives isn't completely underpinned by effective communications.
Speaker 3:So I want to go. You've talked there a lot about that. You talked about the hope muscle, which I really like, and, and I know values based communications theory talks about different parts of our brain being like muscles and the more you work them out, the more that they are exercised and activated, and I always think that's really powerful. And the other thing I find really fascinating about values-based comms is if you exercise the wrong muscle, it becomes stronger. So the fear and the hate muscle is one that you activate more and more and more, and the world of mainstream advertising and marketing is great at activating those muscles, isn't it? And then you've also talked about the other bit of the methodology that you approach for narrative building, which is framing and refugees Refugees aren't criminals and you've just done the classic. Don't think of an elephant moment where you're framing.
Speaker 3:You've got a huge amount of psychology in your methodology, haven't you? In hope-based approach to to communications. Tell us a little bit more about when did you get so deep into the psychology of what you're working?
Speaker 4:I think it's fascinating yeah, that's a really great question. So, yeah, and people often ask me when I do a presentation like, oh, you did you study psychology? It's like, no, I studied history. Um, it was, first of all, it was my colleague who's my boss at amos international, or sam abuta, brought along these amazing experts called amy simon and robert peres from the united states, and they've been working a lot on how to build support for lgbtq plus people and and their approach is called hardwired, and so they're looking at the emotional, subconscious aspects of our identity that are making us decide whether or not to be in favor of something or not, and that was what really opened my eyes up to this. Yeah, actually it's not just facts that change people's mind, and I think then it's just a case of reading the stuff, and I think it's, um, the interesting thing actually is, uh, I partly just started absorbing it all and I think again, maybe it's that having that comms background a lot allowed me to apply it, because I keep trying to stress, you know, first of all, the that's, that field of neuroscience is so new that people are also arguing about what's right or wrong. So I try to say, look, I'm presenting this and it has huge implications for our work. But, like, don't take my word for it, go and engage with it yourself as well. I think that's really we just need to be having this conversation. But also I think a lot of it just reflects, I think we kind of see it just speaks so much to the moment we're in. You know, we see the confirmation bias, we see the populace, we see the facts not really working with them.
Speaker 4:And I think the thing, one of the pieces that really helped me understand the moment we're living in is this it's actually as Klein wrote about it in his book, why we're Polarized First of all. You know we're in this era. Wrote about it in his book why we're Polarized First of all. You know we're in this era. We used to have this idea of people just have the information, don't make the right decision. I think with the internet we know that. And that's where I think it's so key that social change movements kind of adapt to a post.
Speaker 4:You know the fact that we have the internet now it's not about just we've exposed something people didn't know about, but just idea of identity. Protective cognition, as in our thinking, is actually not motivated to find out the beautiful truth, it's motivated to make sure we stick in our in-group. And once you start knowing those things, first of all, oh yeah, now I understand other people. But also, ok, my campaigning doesn't just have to get people to engage with my 90 page PDF report, get people to engage with my 90-page PDF report. Actually, I just need to create a sense of belonging, and actually maybe producing a tote bag or having everyone wear my branded socks Just look at the Pride logo, for example is actually part of creating that identity. And so, again, we have a lot of work to do, but I think it opens up all these avenues, all these pathways for us of how we can sort of make change happen.
Speaker 2:Wow. Well, I know that we have mentioned it a few times in this episode, but I still feel that we're tiptoeing around the real subject and fear and feeling, so I'm going to go out and just get head into it. Today, as we know, all know, we do have a huge backlash on every aspect of the gains that rights movements have collected in the last decade LGBTQ rights, human rights, children and women's rights, workers' rights, climate and planetary campaigns I mean, you name it. We are retreating, so it is impossible for us not to mention also the situation in Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine and so on. So do you think there is still space for hope?
Speaker 4:yeah, it's a really good point. Thanks so much for raising it. So, um, as I was saying before, you know, one of the reasons I think I I drew was so drawn to neuroscience is that it's about explaining human behavior and again coming being the descendant of genocide survivors. The reason I studied history was just, I always wanted to understand, like, why do humans do bad things to each other? And I think maybe that's actually the same question that psychology and neuroscience helps us answer. And I think that's really important in this moment and that's sort of the role, again, of hope.
Speaker 4:Just to always stress positivity and optimism is like this is fine little dog in the burning room. Hope is the idea. Tomorrow can be better if we act, and so it's actually the most important time for us to have hope is those dark moments Also with literally in those situations, because for me, my sort of the hope based worldview is also that human nature is essentially good and kind, and it's the environment, it's the fear that drives us to those, to basically the violations, to treat each other badly. So I think it's also within those spaces. Um, it's, you know, we don't really need to. Um, I mean basically the work of responding to these crises, these genocides, all these situations. This is where we need the neuroscience the most. Actually, this work is too important not to do everything we can. And so, again, you know, the stories we're telling ourselves in these moments drives our behavior and action. And it is just also I might take you up on your framing, damla because you know we also have to be careful if we our own narratives that we're in a backlash and we're losing and authoritarianism is strong and democracy is weak, we risk actually reinforcing that, and so again.
Speaker 4:So my historian perspective is there's really horrible genocide right now. I mean, that's what motivates me every day I wake up but we also had it in the 2000s, in the 90s, and we had like a genocide in the Balkans and in Rwanda. And so you know that historical perspective, my version of hope basically is that things are shit now, but they were a lot shitter before. So I told you you know it's the grumpy hope guy here, but that's also just a very practical thing is particularly, you know, these are the moments when we go to work in human rights and we were made we're like a candle. We weren't made for bright times, we were made for dark times and we've seen this before. We know how to deal with it and we know what we have to do. That's the kind of spirit I think we need love it, absolutely love it.
Speaker 3:You know it could. It's been shit before, it's a bit shit now. We can make it less shit. Um exactly let's get it on get that on a poster um, and thomas, I totally you, you, you sounded like one of our uh, creative team there.
Speaker 3:Um, they always say a campaign doesn't really come to life until it's on a tote bag that's just the truth and one last question on fear, because I'm really interested and you, you actually, uh, earlier in our conversation, presented it as a duality between the hope-based communications and fear-based communications. That I think is really interesting and I just wanted to touch on climate communications, extracting you from the human rights world just for a minute and one rule that some colleagues of ours at an agency called Futera came up with was the idea of don't create fear without agency.
Speaker 3:And the idea that fear on its own can paralyze people, and we have to make action happen. So have you got any reflections for us on on how some of your methodology um cascades through into the climate crisis?
Speaker 4:yeah, absolutely, and and people have been using hope base in all these other issues as well I think actually the key point is I think it was ray mcshary in in the us who said issues divide, values unite, and a big part of this work, I think, is actually uniting all these movements with a common set of, basically, ways of thinking and narratives. So really, I think it's actually again comes back to that sense of that. Our nature is cooperation, community and care. So I think, yeah, on a very basic level you've already said it right Just telling people we're doomed is not going to drive the action we need. But the point is we, I think the climate movement, and I think the key thing is all of us.
Speaker 4:You know, a part of the challenge is that can't just be climate experts, but all of us have to get together and say what we're actually for and start talking about a society where we live in harmony with nature and maybe where we can communicate with plants and animals, even to be really radical, but actually imagine if we started really nurturing the love of nature that actually is in all of us and just making the climate movement something you can be part of yourself by going bird watching, by going spending time in nature, which, by the way, triggers oxytocin, the hormone connected to empathy.
Speaker 4:So I think all of this stuff is linked up. But what I try and do with workshops is get people to articulate their vision, articulate their values in really simple terms, like those deep beliefs, but then, above all, ask what does it look like for our audience to act on our values? Right, we have to be able to take action that brings these ideas to life, and by doing that, we're creating rituals, just like religions have, that create that real sense of belonging to our movement. And so I think I again, I actually feel quite hopeful because, like we've spent 30 years saying we're doomed, imagine if the climate movement actually started tapping into this innate desire for connection to nature and other living beings that all of us have. It could actually you know, we have the potential for to be an incredibly powerful movement wow, I mean I'm all in for hope-based movements.
Speaker 2:Okay, now I'm learning it. The final question our network is ironically called do not smile, because we need to make sustainability a subject that brings happiness into the world. So what object, place or person always makes you smile?
Speaker 4:yeah, thanks, that's such a lovely question. You know what it's it's? It's neither an object or a person. It's actually what I realized. My favorite thing obviously I was going to say my wife, but like that's an obvious one it's feeding ducks. I love going to my local pond and just love. You know the excitement you see in ducks when they come up to you, waddle over looking for food. That's my like happy place I love it.
Speaker 3:Okay, thomas, we're gonna have to go a little bit. We're running out of time. But on the feeding that, what do you feed them?
Speaker 4:oh, I'm very careful. I've done my research oats and sunflower seeds. Ah, I I still, though you get, you'll occasionally get told off by by germans.
Speaker 3:You know they're very strict on things and I know no, no, I've done my research, I'm very careful I know because I'll never forget being a right-on parent with my kids in the uk and some national trust property where you got the ducks and we're there with our little sunflower seed packet. Somebody there's with their white sliced bread and the ducks are all just making a beeline for the other family oh, no bad uh, and you know you can't shame them, right?
Speaker 4:so you've got to apply.
Speaker 3:Your hope is communication I know exactly right oh listen, thomas, it's been absolutely brilliant talking to you and there's such a lot to take away from all this. Um, social change is not an information deficit problem. It is all about working the right muscles in your brain. Yeah, amazing, damla, do you want to close it up?
Speaker 3:so thanks to everyone who has listened to our good guys podcast, brought to you by the do not smile network of agencies and make sure you listen to our future episodes, where we'll be talking to more amazing people about how we can work together to create a more sustainable future.
Speaker 1:See you, damla, see you thomas bye bye good geist create a more sustainable future. See you Damla, see you Thomas, bye, bye.
