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Campaign strategy as a house
Strategy as a House is a basic mud map to help you and your team develop a campaign strategy. The foundation of a robust strategy is an understanding of context and a rigorous understanding of the problem you seek to remedy. Next, you’ll need an analysis of...
Merdeka and the Morning Star: Civil Resistance in West Papua
Jason Macleod is a member of the Change Agency team: a dedicated activist educator, mentor and strategist. Having dropped out of university in 1991, Jason hitched to northern Queensland then made his way to Papua New Guinea. Hiking and paddling the Sepik, he made his...
People Power Manual: Campaign Strategy Guide
The Campaign Strategy Guide was the first instalment of the People Power Manual, a resource created for organisers, activist educators and facilitators. Campaign strategy needn’t be mystifying, lonely or stressful. Social movements become more powerful as more people...
Developing a strategy: Advocacy’s road map
A good strategy, like a good route through new terrain, doesn’t just rely on the roads you know. It starts where you are, ends where you want to go and provides a good, plausible route in between… Without a strategy, or with a poor one, you are more likely to...
Core dilemmas of organizing: How do community organizers think?
Every tradition of social action has its own ways of making sense of the world. Community organizing, for example, generally understands social action as an ongoing series of battles over power and resources and the less powerful as a repository of potential agency....
Why opinion polls may not matter as much as you think on climate change. Or much else besides
Winston Churchill said: “There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion”. Any opinion poll, or a report of a poll, is not a reality of raw public opinion but a processed, manufactured product. The polling process, the publication...
Handbook for nonviolent campaigns: War Resisters International
There are many dramatic images of nonviolent action. Indeed, the ability to dramatise an issue is one of the strengths of nonviolence; it tries to make people see and act on what often passes unnoticed. However, this drama doesn’t just happen. It gestates—in...
The tyranny of structurelessness
An article by Jo Freeman first written in the 1970s articulates insights into grassroots dynamics and politics surrounding orgamisational structure(s). Freeman highlights the inequitable power issues in so-called structurelessness.
The Citizens Handbook: Practical assistance for those who want to make a difference
An excellent and extensive collection of resources on: planning and acting; getting noticed; evaluating; getting and keeping people; leading; meeting and deciding; facilitating; fundraising; group structure; door-knocking; conflict resolution; listening...
Stopping the Australian Coal Export Boom
This campaign strategy received saturation media attention when it was leaked to the Australian media. It’s interesting to look at for several reasons. Its authors used ‘theory of change’ in a very practical way, building their tactics around a...
Resources for evaluating community organising
Resources for Evaluating Community Organizing (RECO) is a compendium of resources related to evaluating community organizing. RECO is designed to help organizers, funders, and evaluators quickly and easily find the resources to help them learn what is working and what...
Community organising primer
A great resource developed by Randy Stoeker. Includes explanations of how community organising differs from service delivery, advocacy and community development, and exploration of three different models of CO (power, development, and information focused).
Transactions, transformations, translations: Metrics that matter for building, scaling and funding social movements
A critical challenge for practitioners and foundations is how to develop linkages across sectors in a way that broadens and deepens the overall impact and support base for community wealth-building strategies. Ideally, an integrated approach would encompass mutually...
Planning workshops: 350.org resources for climate campaigners
Are you interested in hosting a workshop to build the capacity of your local organizing group and fellow activists? We make our curriculum available for anyone to use with one caveat: organizing a workshop is tough work, and requires good facilitators and training....
Pathways for change: 10 theories to inform advocacy and policy change
Sarah Stachowiak’s report lays out 10 theories grounded in diverse disciplines and worldviews that have relevance to the world of advocacy and policy change. These theories can help to untangle beliefs and assumptions about the inner workings of the policy...
Organizing Toolbox: New Organizing Institute
Welcome! Whether you’re here to develop your own skills or to put a training together for others you’ll find videos, templates and resources for your organizing, campaigning and training work. These materials have been developed and refined by organizers...
Introduction to community organizing
EducationAction’s online course, includes a number of articles to provide a comprehensive overview of community organising.
Community Organising: People power from the grassroots
There are four fundamental strategies available to neighborhood groups to address community problems: community organizing, advocacy, service delivery or development. There is no right or wrong strategy – each organization has to choose among them constantly....