Hand, Heart, +Soul Project names strut AGENCY as communications partner

Hand, Heart, +Soul Project said Sept. 24, 2026, that it has hired strut AGENCY as its strategic communications and narrative change agency of record. The move is meant to expand the organization’s capacity as it grows its policy and advocacy work and navigates shifting political, philanthropic and public conditions.

Why it matters: - Hand, Heart, +Soul Project is adding outside senior communications support as it expands its policy- and advocacy-centered work. - The partnership is intended to strengthen the organization’s public narrative, leadership capacity and ability to connect community experience with policy decisions. - The move comes as policy, philanthropic and public conditions around the organization’s work continue to shift.

What happened: - Hand, Heart, +Soul Project announced Sept. 24, 2026, that it retained strut AGENCY as its Strategic Communications and Narrative Change Agency of Record. - The Atlanta-based organization said strut AGENCY will serve as an extension of its leadership team. - The engagement is designed to support HHSP’s leadership, advocacy work and growing national presence.

The details: - strut AGENCY will provide strategic communications counsel, narrative development, philanthropic positioning, media strategy and support for priority policy and advocacy initiatives. - The agency will also handle executive counsel and positioning, organizational and issue narrative development, proactive and responsive media strategy, policy and advocacy communications, stakeholder communications and communications for key organizational initiatives. - Wande Okunoren-Meadows, co-creator and executive director of Hand, Heart, +Soul Project, said the partnership is meant to strengthen capacity, continuity and public understanding of the work. - Okunoren-Meadows said the organization is elevating policy- and advocacy-centered efforts because lasting change requires connecting daily lived experience to the systems and decisions shaping those experiences. - HHSP said the partnership builds institutional strength by expanding the circle of expertise supporting communications and narrative strategy. - The organization said the arrangement helps avoid concentrating communications responsibility within any one person or function.

Between the lines: - Hand, Heart, +Soul Project is signaling a more formal communications infrastructure around its mission. - The organization appears to be preparing for a more complex public environment where narrative, policy and advocacy are tightly linked. - Dr. Tashion Macon, chief strategy officer and president of strut AGENCY, said organizations doing consequential work need “narrative infrastructure.” - Macon said the partnership is meant to keep the organization’s leadership, mission and community voices clear and durable.

What's next: - strut AGENCY will help HHSP anticipate emerging issues, shape its public narrative and support leadership decision-making. - The partnership is expected to improve HHSP’s ability to respond to immediate moments while building a longer-term policy-centered narrative. - HHSP said the arrangement will help translate complex policy and community realities into communications that move people toward understanding and action. - The organization said the work will also help connect community-rooted knowledge to broader conversations about policies, systems and investments.

The bottom line: - Hand, Heart, +Soul Project is deepening its communications bench as it tries to scale its policy and advocacy influence without losing its community-rooted focus.