The Problem

Asian American Futures (AAF) launched its Catalyst Lab to resource and strengthen the communications capacity of grassroots AAPI organizations leading innovative, state-level campaigns across the country. But each group — from California to Ohio to Hawaii — faced its own unique challenges: limited staff capacity for communications, competing legislative priorities, and the lack of unified, culturally resonant messaging that could withstand right-wing attacks and speak authentically to their communities.

Without a shared foundation for storytelling or the tools to respond to emerging news cycles, these organizations risked having their hard-fought policy efforts drowned out by louder, more coordinated opposition narratives.

The Strategy

Partnering with Asian American Futures from February to October 2023, New Heights helped develop the Catalyst Lab’s communications muscle from the ground up. We worked with both the foundation and its cohort of grassroots grantees to:

• Build unique organizational messaging identities for each participating group — from Asian Texans for Justice to Hmong Innovating Politics — rooted in their local realities, cultural wisdom, and legislative priorities.
• Train staff and spokespeople to understand and apply social psychology principles in their messaging, helping them communicate with empathy, clarity, and resonance.
• Strengthen rapid response and media engagement capacity to ensure each group could respond effectively to breaking legislative moments and media opportunities in real time.

Our work included weekly communications calls with the cohort in California, Hawaii, Ohio, and Texas; one-on-one strategy sessions with each organization; and ongoing coordination with AAF’s broader consultant team to align messaging across campaigns.

From these sessions, we created tailored messaging guides that distilled each group’s mission into core, actionable narratives — such as “Better Representation for a Stronger Democracy” for Asian Texans for Justice, “We Deserve to Be Counted” for Empowering Pacific Islander Communities, and “Feminist Leadership” for OPAWL – Building AAPI Feminist Leadership.

For OPAWL in particular, whose campaign could have been co-opted by right-wing culture war narratives, we developed messaging that reframed their work around belonging and inclusion: recognizing that all of the communities named in their bill already make Ohio home — and deserve dignity, respect, and fairness in how their histories are taught. It helped shape their campaign for a more diverse and inclusive model social studies curriculum, from the name (Educating for Ohio’s Future) to the graphics on their website, to the signs they carried to press conferences.

The Results

By the end of the engagement, each Catalyst Lab cohort group walked away with a clear, cohesive messaging framework, stronger media readiness, and an ability to translate big ideas into practical communications strategies.

Key Wins Included:

• Securing state and national press coverage for OPAWL’s “Educating for Ohio’s Future” campaign across outlets like Ms. Magazine, Scripps National, Dayton Daily News, NBC 4i (Columbus), and Ohio Capital Journal.
• Supporting Asian Texans for Justice in drafting a bold, values-driven op-ed on representation and civic engagement for the state’s fastest-growing demographic.
• Providing Empowering Pacific Islander Communities with strategic talking points and media backgrounders for backgrounders with The Washington Post’s identity reporter on data equity and disaggregation.
• Helping AAF leadership craft and place op-eds in top-tier outlets like Inside Philanthropy and advising on national responses to pivotal moments — from the end of affirmative action to shifting political narratives about Asian Americans.

Through tailored trainings, media prep sessions, and one-on-one coaching, the Catalyst Lab groups gained confidence in owning their stories and leading with a communications mindset — seeing messaging not as an afterthought, but as a core part of their power-building strategy.

The Takeaway

Asian American Futures’ Catalyst Lab now has a foundation of communications capacity that can be scaled and sustained — helping AAPI-led organizations proactively shape the narratives around them, not just react to them.

From Texas to Hawaii, the result was more than messaging — it was a reframing of what AAPI grassroots leadership looks like when it’s armed with the tools to tell its own story.