Creating new narratives to shape the world of tomorrow.

In our previous op-ed, “It is time for the growing forest to make more noise than the falling trees”, we called for unity: to stand together and make our different voices heard as one, to win the ‘volume war’. The data was clear: the majority is on our side. But a majority for what?

The next question is what to say, and how to say it. To answer it, we first need to identify the problem we are trying to solve, then look at what communication can, and cannot, bring to the table. That is what this op-ed is about.

Enjoy the read!

Who we support

As a reminder, MOJO Agency works exclusively with positive-impact organisations committed to a fairer, more sustainable world. They help rethink the way we produce and consume, so that our planet remains liveable. They enrich our knowledge and our ways of thinking, so that we can make informed decisions. And they support the most vulnerable, so that everyone can live with dignity.

Behind these three broad categories, you will find virtually every sector now facing mounting pressure and serious setbacks in funding, visibility and influence: environmental protection, democracy, independent journalism, education, justice, humanitarian aid, international cooperation, healthcare, scientific research…

The paradigm shift

All these positive-impact players, and there are many of them, are ultimately calling for a paradigm shift:

• That means thinking long term.
• That puts money back in its place: a means to act, not an end in itself.
• That limits the demand for profit and return to some sectors of society, not all of them. Healthcare, justice, education, air and water don’t have to be ‘profitable’.
• That rewards collective resilience, not the performance of a few.
• That favours cooperation over force.
• That recharges rather than drains.

So how come these messages aren’t being heard? Why isn’t scientific evidence enough? Why does the world seem frozen, paralysed by a stubborn resistance to change? Why does it feel like we are heading straight for a wall at 200 km/h… and still putting our foot down? Why are targets being scaled back or postponed? Why are the gains of recent years being methodically unravelled, one by one?

Three problems that feed each other: time horizons, inertia and fear

Time horizons

What do the causes we defend have in common? They are long-term investments, which often deliver few immediate results. Investing in education, in protecting the oceans, in a strong civil society, in the fight against poverty, in cutting-edge scientific research… The benefits for society are proven, but they will only materialise later. Which means we still have to imagine them.

This struggle to look ahead is deeply human. Behavioural science calls it temporal discounting: the more distant a consequence, the less weight it carries in our decisions. Our institutions amplify this bias. Politicians are judged term by term, companies quarter by quarter, the media by the news cycle. All these timeframes favour visible, short-term results over benefits that can take decades to build.

The result: in major political and economic decisions, the short term wins over the long term. And you can read this trade-off in the budgets. In the face of immediate threats, defence spending by the 27 EU Member States reached €418 billion in 2025, 20% more than in 2024, and is projected to reach €454 billion in 2026 (European Defence Agency, July 2026). Meanwhile, the budgets for what protects us over time (education, health, justice, culture, social welfare, environmental protection) are presented as costs to be cut.

The ‘end of the world’ is often pitted against the ‘end of the month’, as if what harms the world did not also harm household budgets. Energy is a case in point. Fossil fuels pollute the air we breathe, disrupt the climate for decades, fuel international conflicts… and weigh heavily on our bills. The 2022 price surge was a reminder for every household. Protecting the common good doesn’t come at the expense of purchasing power. Quite the opposite.

Inertia

Humans, like other animals, have always resisted change. By default, we prefer to stick with what we know, with what feels familiar. Research has documented this extensively. Status quo bias leads us to stay with the existing option to a disproportionate degree, even for major decisions such as choosing a health plan or a pension plan (Samuelson and Zeckhauser, 1988). Loss aversion makes what we stand to lose weigh more heavily than what we might gain (Kahneman, Knetsch and Thaler, 1991). And system justification theory shows that we tend to defend the established order, because it spares us the anxiety of admitting that the system we live in is failing (Jost, Banaji and Nosek, 2004).

So the status quo prevails over the structural changes we need. That is also why scientific evidence isn’t enough. It speaks to reason, while the blockage lies elsewhere: in our habits, our fears, our emotions.

What can pull us out of this inertia? An emergency, a danger. Or, on the contrary, something more desirable, more enjoyable, more rewarding. But beware: fear can also deepen inertia when people can’t see how to act. The alternative must therefore be credible, feel self-evident or exert a real pull. And since uncertainty will never be fully removed, that is also the job of the narrative: to make a future imaginable, credible and desirable, despite what remains unknown.

Fear

We also live in a climate of widespread fear, with existential threats hanging over virtually every continent and every layer of society. And fear makes us turn inwards. It shrinks the circle of what we seek to protect: ourselves, our loved ones, our group, our own interests. Rarely the common good.

Research in political psychology shows that threat does not act directly or uniformly: it activates pre-existing predispositions, authoritarian ones in particular (Feldman and Stenner, 1997). The emotional register matters too. Under existential threat, displays of anger increase favouritism towards one’s own group and the derogation of others, while signals of affiliation, such as a smile, have the opposite effect (Wessler et al., 2023). How we talk about threats therefore partly determines whether people close up or open up.

Kim Witte’s Extended Parallel Process Model (EPPM, 1992) adds another nuance. When faced with a threat, if people see no effective or accessible solution, fear can trigger defensive reactions, such as avoidance or denial, rather than action. In short, raising the alarm is not enough. People also need to feel that another way out is possible, and that everyone can help build it.

This retreat further strengthens the very logic of individualism, force and performance that has driven the many crises we are facing. Politically, this logic is even gaining ground, rather than retreating in the face of the damage it has done.

How, then, do we shift to a long-term vision that guides major decisions? How do we make a future that we cannot, by definition, know feel tangible and credible? How do we stop feeding fear and, finally, give people something to want?

A frame of reference that needs to change

You can’t build what you can’t imagine.

• We were raised to perform, to ‘earn a living’. We were taught to equate success with material accumulation, power, even excess.
• We are exposed to thousands of apocalyptic scenarios. But how many show us a world of peace, respect, care and sharing?
• We are trained to identify problems and solve them. In fact, the organisations we work with are perfectly capable of demonstrating a problem and proposing steps to solve it. But they struggle to describe where they are heading.

In short, we lack the frame of reference for the paradigm shift described above. That frame needs to change: we need to help people imagine it, and make it possible, credible and desirable.

The role of communication

Let’s start with what communication cannot do. It cannot make up for an unfavourable balance of power, a vanishing budget or a political decision that has already been taken.

But beyond awareness campaigns, fundraising and advocacy, it can do something we haven’t really tried yet.

For decades, we have been sounding the alarm. We document, we warn, we count the cost. Fear alone has not brought about the tipping point we hoped for. So we added solutions, explaining to everyone what they could do at their own level. This shift had a perverse effect: it moved responsibility from the system to individuals, with all its baggage of small gestures, personal carbon footprints and guilt. Meanwhile, the structural decisions stayed exactly where they were.

So we need something else. Not another argument. A direction.

Four principles for communication

1. Describe the destination, and a first visible benefit

Positive-impact organisations publish milestones, demands and quantified targets. Almost never a description of what success looks like: an ordinary day, in a city, for a family, in 2040. That description must be precise, vivid and verifiable. And it must come with a first visible benefit before the end of the current legislative term. Without it, the destination remains a postcard.

These benefits won’t necessarily be the same for everyone. Take success itself: who can claim to own its definition? The challenge, then, is to share a common direction without locking desirable futures into a single, rigid vision.

A little challenge while we’re at it: take an hour with your team and write your 2040. Then let’s compare notes…

2. Move from proof of the problem to proof of the possible

The desirable future doesn’t have to be invented from scratch. It already exists, in fragments, in cities, companies, public services, pilot projects and networks of organisations. It often lies dormant in reports nobody reads, when it is one of the most valuable raw materials we have. Gathering this evidence, prioritising it, connecting the dots and making it visible: that is communication work in its own right. That is what can turn conviction into common sense.

3. Combine desire with security

If the status quo wins out of fear of loss, desirability alone won’t be enough. Change becomes possible when four questions get a reassuring answer:

• Where is it already working?
• How much does it cost, and how do we pay for it?
• What do we stand to lose, and how do we protect it?
• How do we correct course along the way?

A project that can be improved and adjusted as it goes is easier to launch than one presented as perfect and irreversible. Reassurance isn’t a retreat from ambition. It is the condition for ambition to be accepted.

4. Don’t stop at the alarm

This isn’t about giving up on raising the alarm. But no warning should ever go out on its own again. It must come with three things:

• a role for the person who receives it;
• a collective to join;
• the power of numbers: knowing that a majority already shares this position.

This last point echoes our previous op-ed: the majority is already there. It just needs to know it.

Our role as an agency

We are convinced of one thing: there is no single desirable future that speaks to everyone in the same way. That is where creativity comes in. It expands what seems possible, opens up other perspectives, and brings to light a multitude of words, faces and concrete examples.

This wealth of imagination must also meet people’s real needs and everyday lives. That takes empathy, a nuanced understanding of our audiences and targeted approaches, to build relevant narratives in which everyone can recognise themselves and find their place. Because the role of communication is not to decide on people’s behalf what they should want. It is to help them picture themselves in other futures, and make those futures their own.

That is the work we offer: strategic support to build with you, over time, narratives that point the way.

The growing forest must make more noise than the falling trees. Volume matters. These voices need to be heard. But to advance the causes we stand for, we need a destination people want to reach.

Sources

• European Defence Agency, Defence Data 2025-2026, published 16 July 2026.
• Samuelson, W. and Zeckhauser, R. (1988). Status quo bias in decision making. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 1, 7–59.
• Kahneman, D., Knetsch, J. L. and Thaler, R. H. (1991). Anomalies: The endowment effect, loss aversion, and status quo bias. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 5(1), 193–206.
• Jost, J. T., Banaji, M. R. and Nosek, B. A. (2004). A decade of system justification theory. Political Psychology, 25(6), 881–919.
• Feldman, S. and Stenner, K. (1997). Perceived threat and authoritarianism. Political Psychology, 18(4), 741–770.
• Wessler, J. et al. (2023). Existential threat and responses to emotional displays of ingroup and outgroup members. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 26(8).
• Witte, K. (1992). Putting the fear back into fear appeals: The extended parallel process model. Communication Monographs, 59(4), 329–349.