20th Anniversary Highlight
History of MAP: Building Common Ground Through Messaging
From the beginning, MAP’s work has been rooted in our ability to deeply understand the people we hope to reach. That insight has guided years of work to equip LGBTQ organizations, community members, and allies with resources to help them build common ground with moveable audiences.
This week, we wrap up our June spotlight series highlighting the legacy and ongoing impact of MAP’s messaging work. Alongside its history, we include several perspectives from MAP’s strongest supporters, funders, and partners about the significance of messaging research in the movement.
“We find MAP’s messaging research is deeply nuanced and is as useful in conversation with an elected representative as with your uncle at Thanksgiving dinner.”
— David Steinglass, Parent and Advocate
After its official founding in 2006, MAP began to use its partnerships and deep understanding of the movement to develop research-based messaging recommendations on LGBTQ related topics.
Branching out from movement capacity work, MAP published the “LGBT Movement Communications Toolkit” in partnership with GLAAD in 2008. The toolkit became the first-ever communications resource on LGBTQ issues and messaging recommendations. MAP then led the nationwide roll-out of the toolkit with a focus on providing technical assistance to movement organizations and research practitioners.
In 2010, MAP’s first executive director, Ineke Mushovic, began building a team of experts, adding three new staff including a policy researcher and a messaging researcher. With these new hires the work took on a new level of quality, diligence and consistency that quickly became synonymous with the MAP brand. That same year, President Obama repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and MAP provided a critical messaging guide emphasizing support for the repeal, offering values-based approaches to talking about the issue.
“One of the challenges about messaging,” explained Nadine Smith, formerly of Equality Florida, “is that sometimes the process of figuring out what messages to use ends up taking a long time, and what I really respect about MAP is that they understand the urgency of activism — that having a perfect answer too late is not as valuable as having the best answer right now.”
By the start of 2012, the fight for marriage equality had experienced multiple wins, including President Obama declaring that his administration would no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act, which banned the recognition of same-sex marriage. As ballot measures emerged across the country, the team prepared for what would be the first public test of MAP’s marriage messaging framework. By November, Washington became the first state to pass a ballot measure to legalize same-sex marriage.
In 2014, on the heels of the Windsor v. U.S. victory, we witnessed accelerated public support for marriage equality and by the end of the year, same-sex marriage was legal in 35 states. MAP continued to play an integral part in challenging remaining state marriage bans along with movement legal organizations including ACLU, GLAD Law (formerly GLAD), Lambda Legal, and NCLR.
After the 2015 landmark SCOTUS decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, declaring same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states, MAP continued to expand its messaging program. Today, with the goal of advancing the conversation and meeting the moment year after year, MAP produces guides to help people better understand issues of LGBTQ equality through the lenses of their own values and beliefs.
“What MAP does is not only the research into how we’re perceived and what people are thinking—it provides the messaging data that can advise aspects of our movement on what messages to emphasize to counteract the hate narrative coming from the right.”
— Richard Burns, Senior Advisor, Johnson Family Foundation
These resources, which focus on specific policy areas, are geared toward helping supporters of LGBTQ people, as well as people who may be conflicted or undecided. For example, our multi-year series of terminology guides helped allies better articulate issues related to marriage and adoption. Most recently, our Talking About LGBTQ Issues series highlights the importance of support from conflicted audiences on issues like curriculum censorship, family acceptance, youth health care, conversion “therapy” practices, identification documents, and more.
To access and read our featured messaging guides, click below.
▸▸ Learn more
- In honor of MAP’s 20 years of impact, our generous Board of Directors is offering an exciting opportunity: all Pride month gifts of $20 or more will be matched $1-for-$1! Donate today.
- Read about our 20-year history by visiting our anniversary page.
- Explore all of MAP’s LGBTQ Equality work here, including policy research, messaging, and more.
