Hope-Based Communication

If we want better systems,
we need better stories to drive change.

Narrative strategy and communications support for organisations doing work that matters. Because when the story is confused, the strategy usually is too.

The philosophy

Hope isn't soft. It's a strategic stance.

Hope-based communication isn't about positive spin or avoiding hard truths. It's about holding the complexity of what's real while pointing clearly toward what's possible. It's the difference between communications that exhaust people and communications that move them.

Most organisations working for change are sitting on powerful stories they haven't yet found the words for. The narrative is the strategy — and getting it right changes everything downstream: how your board understands the work, how your funders tell the story, how your team shows up, how your community responds.

What I do

Three ways to work together

Every engagement is shaped around your actual situation — not a template. Here's where most people start.

Narrative Strategy

Clarify the story underneath your strategy. Theories of change, narrative mapping, messaging frameworks, and the through-line that makes everything else cohere. For organisations at a turning point — repositioning, launching, or trying to articulate something that's always felt hard to say.

Strategic Communications

Communications that land — across audiences, channels, and stakeholder contexts. Strategy documents, annual reports, funding narratives, board papers, public communications. Written in a voice that sounds like you, at the level of quality your work deserves.

Hope-Based Facilitation

Workshops and facilitated processes for teams and leaders who need shared language, renewed direction, or a more hopeful frame for the work. Grounded in narrative, systems thinking, and the practical conditions that make collective action possible.

In practice

The work doesn't fit neatly in a box — and that's the point.

Most communications challenges aren't really communications challenges. They're clarity challenges, confidence challenges, or strategy challenges in disguise. That's where this work starts.

Recent work has included:

A theory of change that finally made sense of what an organisation had been trying to say for years
A narrative map that reframed an organisation's strategy for a Māori and Pasifika audience
A funding narrative that opened doors that had been closed for years
A strategy document a board actually read — and got excited about
A workshop that gave a leadership team shared language for the first time
An annual report that told the human story behind the data
A repositioning process for an organisation stepping into a bigger role
Communications coaching for a leader finding their public voice

What people say

"All of this is incredible. These are the words and concepts I couldn't begin to imagine. You expanded the universe and revealed the truth already present. It feels deep and spacious and true."

"The Board absolutely loved your work. It was perfectly timed, languaged and connected. Thank you."

Tric Malcolm
Pou Arahi / Executive Officer, Kore Hiakai Zero Hunger Collective

The Hope Dispatch

Hope for people doing hard work

Ideas, frameworks and stories for impact leaders navigating complexity. Published on Substack — free, no fluff, worth your time.

Your thinking partner

Megan Salole

Megan Salole is the Principal of Big Picture Thinking — a strategic communications and leadership advisory practice working at the intersection of systems change, narrative strategy, and social impact.

For over two decades, she has worked with NGOs, foundations, Iwi, government agencies, and grassroots movements on the hard problem underneath most strategy challenges: when the narrative is confused, the strategy often is too.

She co-founded ActionStation, helping to ignite a civic community of 400,000+ New Zealanders mobilising collective voice for policy change. She has worked in political environments, campaign strategy, civic innovation, and deliberative democracy.

She is also a visual thinker and illustrator — which means she doesn't just help you clarify your strategy, she can help you communicate it in ways that actually land.

Big Picture Thinking is based on the Kāpiti Coast, Aotearoa New Zealand.

Let's talk

Ready to find the story underneath the strategy?

Whether you're at the beginning of a repositioning or stuck on a single document that won't come together — let's start with a conversation.

If we want better systems,we need better stories to drive change.