In our latest Creative Activist Masterclass session, we had the immense pleasure to meet Yosi Sergant, a pioneer in cultural organizing, founder of TaskForce and architect of groundbreaking cultural campaigns.
Most notably, during the 2008 Presidential campaign, Sergant managed the iconic HOPE campaign with artist Shepard Fairey, which became a defining symbol of Barack Obama's candidacy. With over two decades of experience integrating art, culture, and activism, Sergant offered valuable insights into how organizations can move beyond traditional communication strategies to create meaningful and lasting impact through cultural engagement.
The problem with traditional nonprofit communications
Sergant argues that most organizations center their communications around their own timelines, fiscal years, and needs, rather than considering how their audiences actually live and engage with information. "Politics is where some of the people are, some of the time. A small fraction of people, for a small fraction of their day," Sergant emphasized. "Culture is where all people are, all of the time. The rest of their day, the rest of their lives is full of interests, work, family, hobby, career."
This insight led to a fundamental principle: successful movements need to meet people where they are, engaging with them through their existing cultural interests and communities rather than expecting them to come to us.
Culture as the principal driver of social change
At the core of Sergant's approach is the belief that culture is the primary driver of social change. Through TaskForce, he works to create culture as a vehicle for affecting change to that culture – working upstream to drive long-tail social impact. This approach has manifested in numerous creative campaigns:
Beauty and politics: Engaging celebrity nail artists to create voting-themed nail art for influential figures, generating hundreds of millions of views and sparking conversations about civic engagement in unexpected spaces.
Barber shop activism: Converting barber shops into hubs of political discourse by partnering with influential barbers and providing resources for community organizing.
Sneaker culture: Creating limited-edition shoes with local artists to drive voter registration among young people.
Athletes: Developing running club ephemera and post-run activations for 5k and 10k running events.
The power of authentic engagement
Sergant stressed the importance of avoiding "cringe" – inauthentic attempts to connect with communities. Instead, he advocates for: engaging cultural creatives from within target communities, moving them into leadership positions, allowing them to engage their own communities in authentic ways, and building long-term, mutually beneficial relationships.
Strategic framework for cultural organizing
Sergant provides a practical framework for organizations to develop their cultural strategy:
Identify cultural traits: Understand the specific cultural characteristics and interests of your target audience
Map cultural leaders: Identify trusted voices and tastemakers within those communities
Develop authentic tactics: Create engagement strategies that naturally align with the community's existing cultural practices
Mobilization vs persuasion
A key insight from the session was the need to distinguish between mobilization and persuasion tactics. Sergant argued that these, while both important to building power, require fundamentally different strategies and should not be conflated in campaign planning.
Engaging the base (mobilization): This approach focuses on activating people who already align with your cause but haven't engaged yet. It requires high-volume content production, diverse shareable materials, and multiple engagement opportunities. The key is flooding your channels with content that resonates with your base's existing values and giving them tools to spread the message within their networks. “Give people the tools they need to advocate for you.”
Reaching new audiences (persuasion): This more delicate approach focuses on winning over new supporters through careful, methodical outreach. It requires identifying truly persuadable audiences, partnering with trusted cultural leaders in target communities, and crafting messages that meet people where they are without alienating them. The pace is slower and more deliberate than mobilization work.
"People who are creating the same content for mobilization and persuasion are reaching no one," Sergant noted. "You turn off your own people if you're just preaching to them, and you turn off the persuadables if you're using language that only works for your base."
As we continue our Creative Activist Masterclass series, Sergant's insights offer a valuable framework for rethinking how we approach movement building and social change. By centering culture in our work and developing authentic relationships with communities, we can create more effective and sustainable paths to social impact.
His approach reminds us that successful organizing isn't just about what we say, but how and where we say it – and most importantly, whom we empower to carry the message forward.
Our Creative Activist Masterclass Series, supported by the US Embassy in Bulgaria, is a groundbreaking program designed to connect activists and civil society actors with some of the world's leading experts in strategic and creative communications, marketing, art, and social change.
