The National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) is the leading organization in the country working to mobilize domestic workers into leaders and voters, develop innovative policy solutions to improve wages, protections and working conditions for workers, and change the public narrative around care. On the heels of historic pandemic-era investments in childcare through the American Rescue Plan, as well as the development of a new strategic plan, NDWA came to Spitfire seeking support with enhancing the visibility of the organization and its leaders. The goal was to influence philanthropists, funders and politicians to make care a central issue across state legislatures, federal legislation and the private sector. Spitfire and NDWA partnered together to build the profiles of NDWA’s prominent leaders — Founder and President and National Care Movement Leader, Ai-jen Poo; Executive Director, Jenn Stowe; and the Executive Director of c4 Care in Action, Hillary Holley. Together they crafted powerful messaging to transform care consumers into care constituents who vote on care and funding-facing messaging that tells the story of the future of NDWA.
Our first course of action was to build the profiles of all three powerhouse spokespeople. Spitfire created and implemented profile plans that were tailored to their values and goals to strategically direct their voices to key audiences. As founder and president of NDWA, Spitfire knew the value of Ai-jen’s voice continuing to lead conversations on the care agenda and federal advocacy. We sought opportunities to plug her in high-profile moments, including the submission of a South by Southwest panel; pitching Ai-jen, pitching a regular column, tailored pitch opportunities to get into more cultural spaces; and crating a visualization concept for a “care footprint” to visually tell the story of the far-reaching impact of work care has on people’s day-to-day lives and to understand their role in this movement as care consumers.
In order to differentiate the leadership voices of NDWA and Care in Action, Jenn and Hillary’s profile plans established each as a thought leader to drive NDWA and Care in Action’s narrative with their respective key audiences. For Hillary, this meant building a profile focused on increasing care consumer support and shifting the public perception of care through policy changes like securing meaningful wages and working conditions for domestic workers. For Jenn, this meant building a profile that focused on amplifying the greater care worker movement, shifting how people see care work, and building relationships with priority legislators, grassroots partners and existing and potential NDWA members. We developed communication activities for Hillary and Jenn to utilize to achieve their goals including pitches to encourage reporters to join Hillary and Jenn on NDWA’s bus tour and an exclusive pitch on Hillary’s participation in NDWA’s get-out-to-vote campaign.
Spitfire developed narrative frames and messaging to reach key audiences and influential messengers to help forward NDWA’s strategic objectives to increase wages, benefits and general support for care workers, and build their collective power by shifting care consumers’ and politicians’ perceptions of care work. After conversations between Spitfire and NDWA, it became clear that framing care as an economic issue did not mobilize care consumers. While many consumers value care workers’ careers and work and appreciate the fact that care workers allow them to go to work, most people don’t live to work but work to live. Equating their value as their contribution to the economy dehumanizes care consumers and the care workers who provide them this essential service. While framing care work as “infrastructure” to get a legislator to include it in a bill or framing it as what will sustain our economy may encourage legislative movement, it doesn’t resonate with the average care consumer who is overwhelmed and simply doing their best to get by. It also doesn’t afford humanity to care workers – they are deserving of rights because they are engines of our economy from which we all benefit, rather than simply because they are.From our conversations with NDWA, Spitfire reworked the frames to focus on values and frame care as something we do not have to do alone, and in fact, only possible if we come together.
NDWA and Spitfire co-created a communications plan grounded in strategy and the programmatic and political goals of NDWA’s strategic plan. Spitfire recommended that NDWA more clearly and effectively demonstrate the connection between NDWA’s top three priorities by setting a central goal or north star for communications activities. In the communications plan, Spitfire also outlined specific objectives, tactics, and measures of success for NDWA’s top strategic priorities.
While the NDWA and Spitfire teams were working tirelessly on the profile plans, communications plan and narrative frames, NDWA came to Spitfire for further support in telling their organizational story and the future of the organization in preparation for NDWA’s 20th anniversary fundraising campaign in 2026. We heard from NDWA repeatedly and saw clearly in their strategic plan that the future of NDWA is shifting from focusing on the visibility of domestic work to transforming domestic work. That said, the future of NDWA’s work rests on a narrative shift naming that NDWA and all of its members are the leaders the movement has been waiting for and encourages new folks, from everyday activists to funders to join.
To continue to intrigue existing funders and engage a wider portfolio of funders, Spitfire drafted core messaging to tell the story of the innovative investments in care NDWA is leading. We tailored that messaging to engage funders focused on three undeniably interrelated issues — gender, race and democracy — framing care as an essential part of seeking gender and racial equity and securing a multi-racial democracy.
Spitfire was honored to work with NDWA and looks forward to future partnership opportunities.