[AI-assisted for speed.]
Anyone who’s spent time in movements has sat through this debate. The argument circles endlessly: the reason we’re not winning is because we’re not being aggressive enough, not assertive enough, not giving people a clear enough choice. Or, depending on who’s speaking, because we’ve become too rigid — not open or imaginative enough, not providing aspiration or a vision of the future, not centering joy.
These are false choices. A sophisticated strategy requires both.
Every campaign, organization, and movement moves between two narrative states: fight and build. They are not moral opposites or ideological choices, but complementary tools. Each solves for the other’s weaknesses. Each produces energy the other cannot. The same is true in fundraising. Power comes from knowing when and how to move between them.
What a Fight Narrative Does
Fight narratives create urgency. They make the stakes clear, the timing immediate, and the decision binary. They thrive on compression — a single opponent, a single choice, a single moment that demands action.
At their best, fight narratives create focus and movement. They are simple, accessible, and grounded in the now — an election, a policy vote, a disaster, an assault on rights. They provide tactical clarity: people know what’s needed, what the moment is, and what to do. That immediacy makes them powerful mobilizers, capable of bringing in participants far beyond the core group. The near-term horizon and the concreteness of the task allow people to act together at scale, often in ways that feel unified, purposeful, and decisive.
But those same qualities carry costs. Fight narratives are divisive by design, uniting one side while alienating the other. Their clarity leaves no room for nuance or reflection; complexity and dissent have to wait. They are ideological, tribal, and unsustainable over time. Because they rely on urgency and adrenaline, they consume energy faster than they create it. The constant demand for intensity can exhaust participants and erode credibility—an organization that stays in fight mode too long starts to feel strident or performative. Fights are where the actual choices are made—when things are won or lost—but they are short-lived and can’t sustain a movement on their own.
What a Build Narrative Does
Build narratives define what you’re working toward rather than what you’re fighting against. They describe aspiration, progress, and shared creation. Where fight compresses, build expands. It makes room for nuance, collaboration, and complexity. It is about designing, imagining, and constructing together — the long work of building systems, communities, and capacity.
At their best, build narratives generate energy rather than consume it. They are inclusive and uniting, inviting new people and perspectives into the work. They give time for learning, experimentation, and adaptation. They create hope, trust, and endurance — the sense that what we’re doing matters beyond the next campaign or crisis. They make it possible to educate, to broaden coalitions, and to sustain participation over years rather than days. Build narratives are where the infrastructure of the movement — its relationships, norms, and institutions — take form.
But build narratives also have limits. They move slowly and can test patience. Without visible urgency or short-term wins, people lose interest or move on to more immediate causes. The work can become overly procedural or analytical, bogged down in process and debate. Too much openness can make it hard to decide or act. And when placed alongside an active fight, build narratives almost always lose attention: people will handle the fire in front of them before investing in the future. Build gives direction and endurance, but without fight, it rarely starts.
Why You Need Both
Fight and build are not competing approaches; they are complementary states. Each solves for the other’s weaknesses and is incomplete on its own. Fight provides urgency and consequence. Build provides direction and endurance.
Movements need both, but not in equal measure. Most of the time should be spent in build — creating the structure, relationships, and capacity that allow people to persist. Fight moments arise when opportunity or threat demands focus. They produce the bursts of energy, unity, and visibility that steady work alone can’t generate.
The value of fight is its catalytic power — it concentrates attention and converts potential into action. The value of build is its ability to capture that momentum, turning urgency into infrastructure and participation into endurance. One compresses energy; the other distributes it. The strength of a movement depends on how well it can shift between the two — how effectively it translates short-term mobilization into long-term power.
Without fight, nothing accelerates. Without build, nothing lasts.
Knowing Which One to Use
You can read which narrative to lean on by paying attention to the energy in the room. When people are impatient, anxious, or restless, it’s time to fight. When they’re tired, scattered, or running low, it’s time to build.
You’ll feel it in how they talk and carry themselves — how fast they move through ideas, how tightly they hold focus, how much urgency or spaciousness sits beneath their words. If the energy is calm, deliberate, or professional — a build frame will land. If it’s loud, emotional, or expressive — a fight frame is what the moment needs.
If you’re unsure, ask questions that surface where they are: “How are you feeling about the election?” “What’s giving you hope right now?” “What are you excited about?” Their answers will tell you whether they need action or reflection — whether they’re looking for momentum or meaning.
That energy can shift within a single conversation. Someone who starts animated may fade and need to build. Someone who begins detached may need the clarity of a fight to reengage. The work is to stay responsive — to sense the turn and match it as it happens.
This is sales, not marketing. You’re not preparing a script to broadcast; you’re learning how to meet the moment. Over time, you build an inventory — an arsenal — of ways to talk about the work and bring people with you. You learn how to use context and behavioral cues to bring the right version forward, in the right way, at the right time.
The same literacy that helps you read a room is what lets you design cadence — knowing when to push, when to recover, and how to keep the work in motion.
Geoffrey MacDougall 