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FrameWorks Institute

Washington, D.C.

Grants

2023 ( 10 months)
$50,000

FrameWorks' was founded in 1999, and it's mission is to advance the nonprofit sector's communications capacity by identifying, translating, and modeling relevant scholarly research to frame the public discourse on social problems. FrameWorks uses Strategic Frame Analysis® that roots communications practice in the cognitive and social sciences and that investigates cultural attitudes and assumptions about social issues. FrameWorks uses this approach to design, conduct, and publish multi-method, multidisciplinary communications research to empirically identify the most effective ways of reframing social and scientific topics. FrameWorks also offers strategic guidance for advocates, scientists, policymakers, and nonprofit leaders. Through a model backed by artificial intelligence (AI), this award will apply a hybrid approach to identify a more comprehensive set of persuadable audiences in two newly added sites, St. Louis and Multnomah Counties, focusing on specific audiences with tested messaging through digital ads to influence the local narrative about crime and safety.

2022 (1 year)
$500,000

FrameWorks was founded in 1999 with a clear mission: bring leading-edge insights from social science to the nonprofit sector, supporting the sector’s capacity to reframe social problems as policy issues and drive social change. Using a proprietary set of approaches called Strategic Frame Analysis®, FrameWorks applies social science methods to uncover people’s deeply held worldviews and widely held assumptions. Based on their research findings, they develop and test more productive ways of thinking about social issues and more effective communications strategies. The Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC) current communications strategy relies on earned media, a robust website, and publications highlighting stories on how SJC’s investments have helped stop the overuse and misuse of jails. This grant enables FrameWorks to pursue an alternative yet complementary approach: to test and shape locally driven compelling narratives about what makes communities safe while driving the messages forward with an investment in digital media online networks. Initial project funding includes design, planning, and research and development for piloting strategies and tactics in two selected SJC sites. The aim is to learn what works, what to share, and what elements to replicate from the planning process with other SJC jurisdictions and the field.

2019 (4 years)
$700,000

The FrameWorks Institute is a nonprofit think tank that advances the mission-driven sector’s capacity to frame the public discourse about social and scientific issues. FrameWorks designs, conducts, and publishes multi-method, multi-disciplinary framing research to prepare experts and advocates to expand their constituencies, to build public will, and to further public understanding. The award supports a program of work that will produce empirical, evidence-based practices that will help researchers and advocates more effectively frame and communicate about the social implications of artificial intelligence. 

2016 ( 2 months)
$46,000

The FrameWorks Institute is an independent nonprofit research organization founded in 1999 to improve the non-governmental sector’s communications capacity by identifying, translating, and modeling relevant scholarly research for framing public discourse about social problems. With this award, FrameWorks builds on its prior research on public attitudes about immigration issues by assisting advocacy organizations in analyzing and responding publicly to a 2016 National Academy of Sciences report on the economic and fiscal impacts of immigration.

2015 (1 year)
$60,000

The FrameWorks Institute is an independent nonprofit research organization founded in 1999 to improve the non-governmental sector’s communications capacity by identifying, translating, and modeling relevant scholarly research for framing public discourse about social problems. With this award, FrameWorks builds on its prior research on public attitudes about immigration issues by establishing a working group of immigration policy experts who are also skilled in immigration communications. The working group generates ideas and refines materials together, and then trains its peers in framing and communications. FrameWorks provides working group members with technical assistance, consulting services, and toolkits for peer-to-peer training, expanding the capacity of the immigration community as it advocates for comprehensive reform.

2014 (4 years)
$1,000,000

FrameWorks Institute combines theory and methodology from cognitive and social sciences to probe public reaction to issues, disseminating its findings and recommendations to policy makers, experts, academics, and non-profit organizations. This grant to the FrameWorks Institute will enable it to further public understanding of complex but critical social issues, such as criminal justice, budgets and taxes, immigration, digital media, and climate change. It will solidify the organization’s financial health, assist it in a transition to a new management structure, and create opportunities for income generating program activities in the future.

2014 (1 year)
$285,000

This grant to the FrameWorks Institute will help immigration experts improve their ability to communicate effectively with the public about reforming the nation’s immigration policies. FrameWorks will create new narratives for leading experts and advocates, enabling them to explain more effectively the challenges posed by the nation’s current immigration policies and to offer pragmatic solutions. It will disseminate the findings of its research phase through a variety of presentations, toolkits, webinars, and intensive study groups designed to integrate these messages into debates to improve the nation’s broken immigration system.

2013 (2 years)
$300,000

The FrameWorks Institute is an independent research organization that enhances the non-profit sector’s communications capacity by identifying, translating, and using relevant scholarly research for framing public discourse about social problems. The Foundation has turned to FrameWorks for help and provided project support for what is called Strategic Frame Analysis in several areas. This grant provides general operating support for the organization as it undertakes communications research projects across the spectrum of contemporary issues: education, immigration, juvenile and criminal justice, climate change, mental health, budget and taxes, early childhood development, and more.

2013 (1 year 4 months)
$500,000

The FrameWorks Institute is an independent nonprofit research organization founded in 1999 to advance the nonprofit sector’s communications capacity by identifying, translating and modeling relevant scholarly research for framing public discourse about social problems. The grant will support the FrameWorks Institute to conduct research and activities to understand what the public currently thinks about immigration, and how, at a time when policymakers and experts are discussing reform, to engage the public productively on immigration policy reform and implementation.

2010 (1 year 11 months)
$490,000

To support theme and messaging research for the emerging field of digital media and learning (over two years).

2010 (1 year 11 months)
$490,000

To support theme and messaging research for the emerging field of digital media and learning (over two years).

2009 (1 year)
$275,000

To support theme and messaging research for the U.S. Fiscal Future project.

2009 (1 year)
$275,000

To support theme and messaging research for the U.S. Fiscal Future project.