I regularly tell organizations that they should be less afraid of polarization. Take a position. Build power. Stop testing every sentence in advance against an imaginary citizen in the middle who above all must not be startled by anything.
I still believe that.
And yet I need to add something to it.
Some time ago, I noticed something among a number of philanthropic foundations I worked with on international solidarity. After Trump froze American foreign aid in early 2025 and his administration largely dismantled USAID, doubt arose. Do we speak out? Or do we keep our heads down? The fear was recognizable: if we respond strongly to this, we might give the far right here ideas. Perhaps we would bring a conflict here that, for now, is still somewhat further away.
I encounter that reflex more often among directors of civil society organizations: don’t add fuel to the fire.
And sometimes that is wise. But this summer in the Netherlands I saw something happen that made me think about when exactly the opposite is needed.
The silent middle sometimes suddenly exists again
I sometimes use the Overton Window as a framework for thinking about political change. It describes which ideas, at a given moment, are socially acceptable enough to become politically feasible. That window can shift. Organizations, movements, and politicians constantly try to help move it.
That is why I have little faith in communication that endlessly targets an abstract silent middle. Those who constantly weaken their own story to reassure the least convinced listener build little power. Strong movements also pull the debate toward themselves.
But sometimes something happens that makes existing political positions temporarily less important. Someone crosses a line. So visibly, so recognizably, and so fundamentally that people respond from a much broader human norm. Researchers of social movements call this a moral shock: an event that provokes so much outrage that people move toward political action, even when they previously had no connection to that movement.
And that is where an opportunity arises.
“After a moral shock, there is a brief, temporary opportunity to make your supporters and their engagement peak.”
VluchtelingenWerk saw that opportunity
VluchtelingenWerk Nederland launched the Living Together campaign in March. A simple poster. Two hands form a heart. The message: differences do not have to drive us apart.
In late July, homes and cars in Engelen and Bokhoven were defaced in an escalating conflict over the arrival of a reception facility for unaccompanied minor asylum seekers. Several of the affected residents had the Living Together poster hanging in their window. VluchtelingenWerk later described the poster as the trigger for the intimidation. The police recorded thirteen reports and later arrested two suspects.
VluchtelingenWerk did not remain silent afterwards. I find that strategically very interesting. The organization did not make the message harsher either. It chose its own ground.
You can be for or against a specific reception facility. You can have concerns. You can strongly disagree. Intimidating residents because of their peaceful conviction crosses a line. That is where VluchtelingenWerk placed the conflict.
And then something remarkable happened. Before the events, people requested several hundred posters every day. After that, the number rose to more than 3,000 requests in a single day. On 30 July, the counter stood at over 75,000. By now, more than 84,000 people have requested the poster.
An attempt to push a message out of the streetscape caused it to appear thousands of extra times behind windows.
First: name the boundary
A moral shock requires a genuine violation of a norm. A nasty Facebook comment is not enough. Nor is a politician questioning your subsidy. Some events touch on something more fundamental. People feel almost immediately: you do not do this. As an organization, you have to recognize and name that moment.
Directors are often trained to communicate cautiously precisely then. Every word passes through communications, policy, management and preferably a lawyer as well. By the time everyone has been reassured, public outrage has already moved on three news cycles. Yet at that moment people are feeling something and looking for language to understand that feeling. An organization can provide that language. Clearly, without exaggeration and without making the conflict bigger than it is.
Step out of your opponent’s story
This is where, in my view, VluchtelingenWerk made the smartest choice. The organization did not allow itself to be trapped in the question: are you for or against the asylum seekers’ center? As soon as that becomes the central question, you are back in the same political trenches and you have already translated the moral shock into the conflict that existed before.
VluchtelingenWerk put forward a different story: we live together with people with whom we may fundamentally disagree. Intimidation makes that coexistence impossible. That story suddenly makes the group that feels addressed much larger. You do not have to fully share VluchtelingenWerk’s asylum policy to believe that people should be able to hang their opinion safely behind their window. You do not even have to see yourself as progressive.
That is precisely the power of such a moment. Political identity does not disappear, but a broader human norm temporarily comes to the fore. And that is where an organization can reach people who remain beyond its reach in ordinary public debate.
Build around a core value
Moral shock therefore also requires discipline. The temptation is great to use the moment to immediately put your entire political program on the table. Twelve demands. Seven policy changes. While the strategic question is much simpler: which value was touched here?
Human dignity. Freedom. Justice. Safety. Solidarity. Decency. Living together.
VluchtelingenWerk happened to already have that core value literally on a poster. That helps. Research into collective action also points to three powerful drivers: people experience injustice, they feel connected to a shared identity and they believe that their actions can make a difference. The moral shock provides the outrage. Your story builds the shared identity. After that, you still have to give people a way to do something with what they feel.
Give people something to do immediately
This is where, in my view, organizations leave the most potential untapped. They write a strong statement, the director posts something on LinkedIn, a press release goes out into the world and everyone nods indignantly. After that, nothing more happens.
Yet people who are affected are looking for an outlet for that emotion.
VluchtelingenWerk could say: put up this poster. Fantastically simple. You did not have to become a member, take a course or fit a demonstration into your calendar. You ordered a poster and hung it behind your window.
In doing so, an individual feeling turned into visible collective behavior. Each new poster also did something else: it told the neighbor three houses down that she was not alone either. That is how social proof emerges. That is how a sense of shared position grows. And it is precisely there that sympathy can turn into engagement.
That is how a support base can grow.
Sometimes you have to use the fire
I continue to advise organizations to take a position. I continue to believe that permanent caution makes civil society small. The Overton Window rarely shifts because everyone keeps saying the same thing very carefully.
Only from now on, I am adding an important question: has a moral shock occurred here?
When the answer is yes, your strategy changes. Name the norm that has been crossed. Leave the polarizing frame aside. Build your own story around a broad human value and immediately give people an action through which they can join in. Because precisely at that moment, there are people standing beside you who did not belong to your support base yesterday.
The reflex is often: make yourself small until the storm has passed. VluchtelingenWerk did not do that. The result: a huge increase in engagement and support base!
