Narrative Strategy | Video + Collateral Development | Organizational Consolidation
Global Zero
An idea whose time has come.
Two existential threats connect all living beings: climate change and nuclear weapons. In ongoing nuclear disarmament efforts, only one organization was founded to demand zero — the only safe number of nuclear weapons — and has a plan to rid the world of these weapons once and for all.
Global Zero is an international advocacy initiative focused on shifting narrative, policy, and grassroots mobilization to abolish nuclear weapons in our lifetime. The idea isn’t some impossible fantasy: in 2010, a global community of military, civic, and political leaders from nuclear-armed states developed a framework — the Global Zero Action Plan — providing a roadmap for the phased, verified elimination of all nuclear weapons everywhere. For more than a decade, Do Good Better has supported narrative, campaign, and organizational strategy to meet the moment, as political administrations and global tensions evolved over time.
“Through the years and many evolutions of our organization, Do Good Better’s luminous and joyful partnership always challenged me to push beyond limiting beliefs and do my best work. Their expansive thinking, strategic focus, and deep understanding of integrated engagement allowed Global Zero to consistently break new ground in a constantly shifting landscape.”
— Derek Johnson, Global Zero
For years, the biggest challenge was getting people to think about nuclear weapons at all. Today, more than 90% of Americans are worried about a nuclear event — and that was before the release of the Hollywood blockbuster, Oppenheimer.
And most don’t realize that since the Cold War, the steady and critical work of destroying nuclear armaments has been underway: in 1986, there were more than 70,000 weapons. Current stockpiles include around 12,500.
Since its launch in Paris in 2008, Global Zero has generated more than half a billion dollars in earned media, ensuring that people consider complete nuclear abolition alongside arms containment and reduction efforts. While progress has been made to rally non-nuclear nations around a legal prohibition, abolition cannot be achieved without bringing nuclear-armed states into direct negotiations. The Global Zero Action Plan was designed with and for nuclear-armed actors to continue the important work of eliminating these weapons — even when geopolitics and vested interests militate against it.
Do Good Better has supported narrative strategy and organizational evolution over years, including:
Co-creating a values-based narrative strategy, with staff and input from external stakeholders and funders: cultivating Imagination and Empathy, taking actions that build Trust and call on Courage, in fierce pursuit of Justice, confronting the villain of Limiting Beliefs. Archetype: Revolutionary Weaver.
Training staff on narrative strategy and communications guidelines
Developing videos, collateral, website(s), and merchandise
Supporting the design and facilitation of a new organizational model engaging staff, peers, funders, futurists, storytellers, and artists across 22 organizations
Of note: helped to concept and script Global Zero’s original signature video and engaged celebrities to produce a low-budget, fast turnaround video on the 5th anniversary of President Obama’s speech in Prague, where he committed to a world without nuclear weapons (contributing to his Nobel Peace Prize).
Collaborators
Collateral design, social media, public relations coordination: the team and leadership of Global Zero
An Idea that Changed the World video: Eric Smith (Director), Erica Priggen Wright (Executive Producer)
The World Must Stand Together video: Eric Smith (Director), Jeff Consiglio (Editor)