“I’ve seen, from my own experience, how much of an impact this has had on the reality of the work that I’m
doing, interacting with policymakers and business leaders and other influentials. There’s something really
dramatically different about the feedback I get from the presentations I do and the interactions I have now,
compared to my pre-FrameWorks days. And I would describe that difference as having a sense that there is a
clarity of message, and that there’s a clarity of framing, that I can feel is going out and I can see is coming
back that I attribute entirely to the work that we’ve done with the FrameWorks Institute.”
--Jack Shonkoff
Julius B. Richmond FAMRI Professor of Child Health and Development, Harvard School of Public Health and Harvard
Graduate School of Education
Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School and Children's Hospital Boston
Director, Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University
ABOUT THE FRAMEWORKS INSTITUTE
The mission of the FrameWorks Institute is to build the
communications capacity of the non-profit sector by translating
scholarly work into research-based practices that build public
will and advance public policy. Current projects focus on such
issues as digital media and learning, education reform, healthcare
reform, budgets and taxes, children's oral health, children’s
mental health, race, rural issues, climate change, the American
food system and early child development.
Established in 1999, FrameWorks brings together leading
scholars from the cognitive and social sciences to investigate how the American public thinks about
a particular issue, and how a more effective “frame” might be created to elevate the issue on the
civic agenda. FrameWorks also critiques, designs, conducts and evaluates communications
campaigns on social issues. Its work is based on an approach called Strategic Frame Analysis™,
which recognizes that each new push for public understanding and acceptance happens against a
backdrop of long-term media coverage, of perceptions formed over time, of scripts we have learned
since childhood to help us make sense of our world.
FrameWorks research has been presented at the White House Conference on Teenagers, MacArthur
Foundation Research Network on Successful Pathways Through Middle Childhood, Grantmakers for
Children, Youth and Families, Grantmakers for Education, the National Smart Start Conference, the
National Academy of Science Board on Children, Youth and Families, National Scientific Council
on the Developing Child, Surgeon General's Conference on Children and Oral Health, and numerous
other forums.
Funders of the Institute include: the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Advocacy Institute, Aspen Institute,
Barr Foundation, the California Endowment, the Ford Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation, W. T. Grant Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, John D and Catherine T
MacArthur Foundation, National Funding Collaborative on Violence Prevention, Nellie Mae
Education Foundation, David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund,
Rockefeller Foundation, Caroline and Sigmund Schott Foundation, Washington Dental Service, and
the National Institutes of Health.
ABOUT THE PRESENTER
TIFFANY MANUEL, PH.D. is the Director of Institutional
Impact and Evaluation for the FrameWorks Institute. Tiffany
leads the Institute’s efforts to broaden the impact of strategic
framing in the nonprofit community. Prior to joining
FrameWorks, Manuel served as a senior policy analyst at the
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where she was
responsible for conducting and directing public policy research.
She has served as a senior researcher at Harvard University’s
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and has served as an
assistant professor of political science and public policy at the
University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She has worked as an
economic development consultant in the areas of program
evaluation, comparative regional economic analysis, cost-benefit
analysis, and social welfare and labor policy analysis. Manuel
holds a B.A. in political science from the University of Chicago, a master’s degree in political
science from Purdue University, and doctorate and master’s degrees in public policy from the
University of Massachusetts Boston.