It’s Time to Stand Up Against Zero-Sum Messaging: Here’s How
April 17, 2025
By: Peter Panepento
If you work for a social-good organization, you likely are motivated by the idea of “more.”
You chose this work because you want to help more young people get a quality education, or help more people have affordable homes, or create more wind and solar energy, or ensure more people get the healthcare they need, or … you get the idea.
Regardless of the cause you champion, you know that if you can help create more of a specific outcome, you're doing much more than helping improve lives and conditions for those directly impacted. You’re also helping build stronger communities and grow economies.
But this entire belief system — and, in turn, everything you’ve been working to achieve — is now under attack by those who have been conditioned to follow a different model.
These folks don’t think making more possible for some is necessarily a good thing — because they believe that if you direct resources to one person, you’re taking an equal share away from someone else.
This is zero-sum thinking.
Zero-sum thinkers view the world as a giant pie. And it's a place where all of us must fight for our own slices.
If the person next to you gets a bigger piece, it means you’re getting a smaller share.
Zero-sum thinkers have been winning the public debate quite a bit recently — largely because a large portion of our population have been converted to worship at its temple.
The zero-summers are Republicans and Democrats. They live in small towns and cities.
They are young and old.
They see every transaction — whether it’s a decision to buy a good produced in another country or make a donation to a nonprofit with a similar mission — through the lens of winners and losers.
It’s time to forcefully push back against this mindset because when it’s taken to an extreme it has the potential to create a smaller pie – and nasty fights over who gets the last piece.
It has the potential to destroy systems that are working to create opportunity and grow resources. When that happens, division – and despair – are sure to follow.
To combat this race to the bottom, we must become active champions of “rising tide” narratives — using messaging frames, vivid storytelling, and data to make our case against the zero-sum crowd by showing instead how (to borrow a cliché) rising tides lift all boats.
Here are three ways to champion the rising tide mindset through your communications.
Make asset framing your default setting
Many organizations communicate about their work through the lens of the problem they are trying to solve, rather than the vision they are working to achieve.
By doing so, they are unconsciously setting up a zero-sum argument — and are often failing to show audiences how the impact of their work extends beyond addressing this single issue or supporting a specific population.
As an alternative, we champion a messaging approach that begins with clearly outlining your vision — and what achieving that vision would mean for the community (or communities) you serve — before you even mention the challenges or barriers that stand in the way of achieving that mission.
When you take this asset-based messaging approach, it opens doors for new ways of thinking about how you talk about the benefits of your work.
It also invites your audiences to become more emotionally and intellectually interested in your cause and your approach to addressing the challenge.
Champion collaboration
When you’re working to win the hearts and minds of potential donors, it’s tempting to show how you, alone, are making a difference.
But winning the battle against zero-sum requires us to think beyond our own needs and accomplishments to amplify the work of those who share our vision and serve as our partners.
It’s always important — and especially critical right now — to show the benefits that come from working together to address complex problems and how each organization or person involved is contributing to greater results that benefit everyone.
Take a clear look at your storytelling and content to see if you’re showcasing and elevating the stories of partners, collaborative efforts, and champions who are allies in your work. Chances are, you’ll find you are missing opportunities to spotlight your effective collaborations and show the impact of those partnerships.
Make the case with data
One big way to show the value of the rising tides theory is to provide tangible proof through data.
One of our clients, Fairfield County’s Community Foundation, is doing this through research that shows how creating a more competitive, resilient, and inclusive regional economy would impact everything from revenues for local businesses, to property values, to tax revenue.
The foundation is explaining these benefits in clear terms to make the case to community leaders to come together to unlock the region’s full potential. Here’s an excerpt from the messaging we co-developed with the foundation’s team to announce the release of the research:
“When we lift up everyone, we all rise. This isn’t just the right thing to do — it’s the smart thing to do. The question isn’t whether we can afford to make these investments. It’s whether we can afford not to.”
It’s a clear and powerful argument for rising tides communications — grounded in data and powerful storytelling.
And it provides a great blueprint for others that want to win back those who have fallen prey to zero-sum thinking.
