Our story
Open Media is a women-owned communications firm that helps public-interest organizations, institutions, and government drive systems change.
We specialize in communications, community engagement, and policy strategy, with deep experience across government, community-based organizations, nonprofits, and philanthropy. Open Media was founded to address a gap in the market: most communications firms are built for traditional public affairs, advertising, or branding. Systems change requires a different kind of practice—one that builds trust, aligns stakeholders, and translates complex ideas into shared understanding and coordinated action.
Achieving this requires rethinking communications itself. Too often, communications is designed for one-way notification. But systems change depends on bringing many actors together, enabling participation, and supporting collective action over time.
Our name reflects this philosophy. We use the abbreviation “OM,” a symbol of interconnectedness, to represent our belief that large-scale solutions depend on trust, shared understanding, and coordinated action—and that effective communication is what makes that possible.
We look forward to working together.
Our approach
We tell stories to change hearts and minds.
Systems change can’t rely on technical evidence alone. Reform often stalls because of a narrative mismatch: policies are explained in technical terms, while people understand the world through lived experience. When explanations don’t fit everyday reality, they don’t build public backing, and without public backing, there is no political momentum. We develop real stories about people’s lives to make the stakes understandable and to help audiences imagine what a better system could look like.
We treat communications and engagement as infrastructure in your organization.
Most initiatives treat communications as promotion after decisions are made. Information moves one-way, partners work in parallel, communities react late, and each organization holds only a partial understanding of the whole effort. We build communications and engagement as a coordinated system that builds trust, enables partners and communities to learn from one another, strengthens collective capacity, and moves people into clear pathways for action.
We create momentum by building multi-sector partnerships.
One story, press release, or podcast isn’t enough to shift deeply held beliefs. Change happens when people encounter the same idea across many places and trusted voices. We design coordinated campaigns across media, organizations, and sectors at all levels, bringing these partners together to carry shared messages and real stories so new ways of thinking can take hold.
We innovate and measure.
Communications is built for a media landscape that is quickly evolving as platforms shift quickly, attention fragments, and trust becomes more uneven. As a result, many organizations rely on strategies designed for a different era, creating growing misalignment with the people they aim to reach. Through our nonprofit arm, Open Media Labs, we research, test, and measure communication strategies that support systems change. We apply what we learn in real-world settings and share the findings so others can use them too.
Our values
Everyone belongs
No single organization can solve complex challenges alone. We intentionally bridge across sectors, communities, and perspectives, especially those left out of systems of power, and design spaces where people can participate meaningfully. We do this because we believe solutions are stronger when they are shaped and carried out by the full collective.
Systems thinking
The systems change our clients pursue requires us to treat communications as a system, too. We design feedback loops, align partners, surface shared learning, and build trust over time. For us, communications is not an add-on but rather is an operating system that shapes how understanding forms and how coordinated action becomes possible.
Right relationship
We work from the understanding that people, institutions, economies, and ecosystems are all related. Therefore, the health of one part of the system affects the whole. Reciprocity, respect, and continuous learning guide how we engage and build relationships with our clients, the communities we serve, and the broader world.
Innovation + excellence
We believe the field of communications must evolve to meet the scale of today’s challenges. As the connective tissue across systems, it has the power to shape understanding, align actors, and unlock change. We work to advance the field itself: developing new practices, testing what works, and contributing to a future where communications is central to solving the world’s most pressing challenges.
