movement building
The New Now: Working Together for Social Change
LGBT movement leaders know that the discrimination LGBT people face—embedded in cultural norms, policies, and laws—is still a part of the fabric of our everyday lives. This report highlights the intersectional approach through case examples in two states where...
Equipping the Church for Social Change
The ‘Equipping the Church for Social Change’ was a 3-year project aiming to provide leadership and resources to the Uniting Church (and wider church community) in Sydney, to equip and support members and congregations to take social change action. Through mentoring,...
Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow: an organizing guide
Daniel Hunter’s accessible organizing guide puts tools in your hands to help you and your group understand how to make meaningful, effective change. Learn about your role in movement-building and how to pick and build campaigns that contribute towards a bigger...
The New Bottom Line: Building Alignment and Scale to Confront the Economic Crisis
The New Bottom Line effort was a daring experiment that grew out of a moment of crisis and a shared understanding that organizing in traditional modes as disparate networks would not be enough to win against the banks that had crashed the economy. The four organizing...
Engagement organising: The technology and culture of building power
Matt Price & Jon Stahl write: “We are in the midst of a historic shift from one era of social change advocacy to another. A world of expert-driven, direct mail oriented organizations is giving way to nimble, data-driven, learning organizations that place...
Whiteness and Blackness in the Koori struggle for self-determination
Gary Foley says: “Despite the plethora of white support groups how is it that Koori people are today constantly asking me, ‘Why does it often seem that some of our best white friends behave like some our worst enemies?’ I regard that as a good...
The end of activism and the renaissance of organizing
I am not an activist. I don’t believe in activism. I think activism, as it is generally practiced in the United States, is more often than not a cop out and an excuse by some to avoid doing the heavy lifting of organizing. What is the difference, you might ask,...
Shifting strategies to advance community level impact: Building movement
For service agencies that decide to take on advocacy and organizing tactics as part of their strategy for making their social change vision a reality, there’s sometimes a tendency to assume that hiring an organizer or creating an advocacy arm will suffice. But I’ve...
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...
New Tactics in Human Rights
Learn new ways to reach your human rights goals. Connect with other human rights defenders. Learn about strategy. Read about New Tactics in Human Rights.
‘Stop the War’ coalition: Amanda Tattersall interview
In 2003 an estimated 250,000 people marched in Sydney against the Iraq war — the biggest demonstration the city had ever seen. A few days later a much smaller group of demonstrators met at the same place to campaign for public education. The first protest was...
Links on allies from the Treaty Resource Centre He Puna M257;tauranga
A critical dimension of social justice struggles is the work of the people who support those more directly affected by a particular justice issue, the work of allies. These resources explore the role of non-indigenous supporters of indigenous justice struggles. They...
Identifying the training needs of grassroots activists campaigners
Nicola Paris’ report into the training needs for grassroots activists focuses on nonviolent action and related campaigning skills needed, and gives a good oversight of some common experiences for campaigners and case studies.
Farmworker Movement: Primary source accounts by the UFW volunteers who built the movement
This project seeks to compile and publish primary source accounts from the volunteers who worked with Cesar Chavez to build his farmworker movement during the period, 1962-1993. Si Se Puede! (Yes, we can!)
Diversity is inefficient
We shouldn’t bother with diversity unless we plan to make the time to be inclusive. Because diversity without inclusion backfires. Almost always. Over and over again I’ve seen people with the best intentions of building racial bridges horrified to see...
Class matters
“Often the paid organizers in low-income communities come from professional middle-class backgrounds. I worked as a community organizer for many years, and the class dynamics can be tricky…”
Changing advocacy: The movement fragments
Building network capacity is not magic. Powering networks for social action are constructed around seven key enabling attributes. The challenge to grassroots organizers and advocacy communication strategists is to match mobilizing and advocacy efforts with these new...
Catalyst Project: Center for political education and movement building
Catalyst Project helps to build powerful multiracial movements that can win collective liberation. In the service of this vision, we organize, train and mentor white people to take collective action to end racism, war and empire, and to support efforts to build power...