resources for organizers

I’m in the process of building a more cohesive list of tools and resources for change agents. This is still a work-in-progress. Check out Build The Wheel – new wiki resource for organizers to share curriculum and training tools.

A lot of this curriculum was adapted from, or developed by these outstanding training organizations: the Ruckus Society, Movement Generation, smartMeme, casagordita, Training for Change, RANT collective, Beyond the Choir, Midnight Special Law Collective, Organizing for Power, and School for Unity and Liberation (SOUL)

Activist Tools

• Nonviolent Direct Action & Civil Disobedience
  • Action Strategy & Planning Manual (Ruckus Society)
  • Overview of Nonviolent Direct Action (Trapeze Collective)
  • Introduction to Nonviolent Direct Action (RAN)
  • 198 Methods of Nonviolent Protest and Persuasion (Gene Sharp)
  • Story Based Strategies for Action Design (smartMeme)
  • Shelter Under the Anti-War Umbrella (Solnit)
  • Scouting Manual (Ruckus)
  • Eco-Justice Action Ideas (Ruckus)
  • Creative Direct Action Visuals Manual (Ruckus)
  • Direct Action Planning Steps (Ruckus)
  • Balloon Banner Manual (Ruckus)
  • Bird-Dogging (Ruckus)
  • Action Planning Manual (Ruckus)
  • Know Your Rights (Midnight Special Law Collective)
  • ACLU Guide to Civil Disobedience at Public Universities (ACLU)
  • Finding Tactics that Matter training tool(Training for Change)
• Tactical How-To
  • How to Hijack a Power Point Presentation (RAN)
  • Climber’s Knots Manual (Ruckus)
• Strategy Tools
  • Tactics to Strategy intro training agenda (Training for Change)
  • Three Circles Eco-Justice / Climate Justice Strategy (Movement Generation)
  • Tactic Star (Beyond The Choir)
  • Spectrum of Allies (Training for Change)
  • Spectrum of Allies part 2 (Organizing for Power)
  • Spectrum of Allies part 3: moving your allies training tool (Training for Change)
  • Story Based Strategy Campaign Model (smartMeme)
  • Campaign Strategy and Planning
  • Stages of Movement Development (George Lakey)
  • Strategizing for a Living Revolution: 5 Stages for Social Movements – George Lakey
  • The Eight Stages of Successful Social Movements – Bill Moyer
  • smartMeme intro to Narrative Power Analysis and Story Based Strategy (smartMeme)
  • Battle of the Story Worksheet (smartMeme)
  • Defining Strategy tool: Blanket Game (Training for Change)
  • Power Map / Influence Map (smartMeme)
  • Points of Intervention Worksheet (smartMeme)
  • Goal Setting tool: paper plate challenge (Training for Change)
  • Building a Successful Antiwar Movement (Beyond the Choir)
  • TFC Strategy Game (Training for Change)
  • Macro-Strategy Tug-of-war (Training for Change)
  • From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation (Gene Sharp – used by Tahrir Square organizers in Egypt)
• Facilitation
  • 56 Games, Warm-Ups, and Energizers (Levana Saxon & Joshua Kahn Russell)
  • Tips for Good Facilitators (Results Through Training)
  • Flip Chart Chart: Graphic Facilitation Techniques (Christine Valenca & Helen Spector)
  • Hints for Facilitators (Casagordita)
  • Taking Stock of Taking Stack (Training for Change)
  • How To Make Meetings Work in a Culturally Diverse Group (Lee Gardenswartz & Anita Rowe)
  • Consensus Checklist (RANT)
  • Facilitation Games (Levana Saxon)
  • Sample Facilitation Training curriculum (Lisa Fithian)
  • Meeting Facilitation: the No-Magic Method (Berit Lakey)
• Organizing
  • Fossil Free Divestment Toolkit (350.org)
  • Jemez Principles for Democratic Organizing
  • Understanding The Role of an Organizer training tool (SOUL)
  • How to Organize a Demonstration
  • Tornado Warning: 4 roles of social change agents training tool(Training for Change)
  • How to Host a Movie Night
  • Thoughts and Exercises on Power (Lisa Fithian)
  • Organizer Training: fear and power [oriented toward Unions] (Lisa Fithian)
  • Organizational Self-Assessment training tool (SOUL)
  • 198 Methods of Nonviolent Protest and Persuasion (Gene Sharp)
  • How to Pass a Local Resolution
• Media
  • Media Manual (Ruckus)
  • Spokesperson Tips (smartMeme)
  • Values Based Messaging tool (Wellstone Action)
  • What’s in a Meme? (smartMeme)
  • Why Stories Matter (Marshall Ganz)
  • What Is News?
  • Holding a media event
  • Pitching Tips
  • Interview Tips (RAN)
  • How to Write Media Advisories and Press Releases (RAN)
  • How to Write a Letter to the Editor (RAN)
  • Sample Op-Ed (Opinion piece) (RAN)
  • Sample Press Release
  • Frank Luntz’s Playbook (a right-wing guide to media and messaging instructing Republicans on how to create a values-shift to the Right -Frank Luntz
• Outreach
  • Intro to Outreach
  • Tips for plugging people in (Beyond the Choir & War Resisters League)
  • How to Recruit Activists at an Event (Tabling) (RAN)
  • Petitioning and Canvassing
  • RAN Guide to Making Posters (RAN)
  • Class Rap (EAC)
  • Phonebanking (EAC)
  • Tabling (EAC)
• Grassroots Fundraising
  • Fundraising 101 (RAN)
  • How to Throw a House Party (RAN)
  • How to Get Stuff Donated (RAN)
  • How to Coordinate a Raffle or Silent Auction (RAN)
  • Doing a Friends and Family Mailing with Sample letter (RAN)
  • Fundraising Practice Scenarios (RAN)

• Full Toolkits
  • NOI Toolbox (New Organizing Institue)
  • Youth Organizing for Community Power / Movement Building (SOUL)
  • Re:Imagining Change: How to Use Story-based Strategy to Win Campaigns, Build Movements, and Change the World (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!)(smartMeme)
  • Movement Generation Eco-Justice Curriculum Manual (Movement Generation)
  • Progressive Communicators Network Toolbox (PCN)
  • Get Some Action: Taking our place in the history of US social movements (Joshua Kahn Russell w/ Gopal Dayanenni, Sharon Lungo, Madeline Gardner)
  • Training for Trainers [order form for hard copy](SOUL)
  • Diversity and Anti-Oppression training tools(Training for Change)
  • Indigenous Peoples’ Guide, False Solutions to Climate Change (Indigenous Environmental Network)

Recursos en español

• Iconoclasistas (Sitio completo de herramientas de la activista, desde Argentina)

Resources on Privilege, Power, Race, Class, and Gender

• Whiteness, Organizing, and Allies
• White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack -Peggy Mcintosh

Building a Racially Diverse and Anti-Oppressive Movement

• A Note on Guilt
• Jemez Principles for Democratic Organizing
• Student Environmentalists Learn Hard Lessons (SEAC)
• 15 Tools for Creating Healthy, Productive Interracial/Multicultural Communities
• The Soul of Environmentalism

Environmental Justice & Climate Justice

• Interview with Robert Bullard (Great Environmental Justice Primer)
• Eco-Justice People’s Movement Assembly Resolution – U.S. Social Forum
• Climate Justice Now! North America Manifesto – Climate Justice Now! North America
• Principles of Environmental Justice (.pdf)
• 10 Principles for Just Climate Change Policies in the US
• Bali Principles of Climate Justice
• Climate Justice Fact Sheet Corpwatch
• We Speak for Ourselves: Indigenous peoples challenge the fossil fuel regime in Alberta (Dominion)
• A Climate of Change: African Americans, Global Warming and a Just Climate Policy for the US (EJCC)

Class

• Opening Pandora’s Box: Adding Classism to the Agenda
• Wanna Talk Values? (Class and Race intersections and classism among African Americans)
• Cross Class Dialogue
• Elite Colleges Must Give Low-Income Students the Tools to Succeed

More…

• Internalized Oppression and Disability

Recommended Readings

• A Call to Innovation! – smartMeme
• Strategizing for a Living Revolution: 5 Stages for Social Movements – George Lakey
• Capitalism vs The Climate – Naomi Klein (The Nation)
• The Power of Nonviolent Direct Action – Daniel Hunter (final) – Daniel Hunter
• Decolonizing the Revolutionary Imagination – Patrick Reinsboro
• Out of the Spiritual Closet: Organizers Transforming the Practice of Social Justice Movement Strategy Center
• Eco-Justice People’s Movement Assembly Resolution – U.S. Social Forum
• Climate Justice Now! North America Manifesto – Climate Justice Now! North America
• Frank Luntz’s Playbook (a right-wing guide to media and messaging instructing Republicans on how to create a values-shift to the Right -Frank Luntz
• The Gulf Oil Spill: A Hole in the World – Naomi Klein
• The Soul of Environmentalism: Rediscovering Transformational Politics in the 21st Century. Michel Gelobter, Michael Dorsey, Leslie Fields, Tom Goldtooth, Anuja Mendiratta, Richard Moore, Rachel Morello-Frosch, Peggy M. Shepard, and Gerald Torres.
• Environmental Justice Leadership Forum on Climate Change, Principles of Climate Justice (2009)
• Interview with Robert Bullard (Great Environmental Justice Primer)
• Principles of Environmental Justice
• 10 Principles for Just Climate Change Policies in the US
• Bali Principles of Climate Justice
• It’s Too Late to Compromise on Climate – Mateo Nube
• How to Break the Climate Stalemate Between the Global South and the North – Gopal Dayaneni, Mateo Nube
• War, Climate Change and Women, Urban Habitat
• The Case for Holistic Economic Transformation, Urban Habitat
• Resilient Cities: Building Community Control – Movement Generation
• Carbon Fundamentalism vs. Climate Justice Urban Habitat [PDF] – Gopal Dayaneni
• Mapping the Terrain: Campaign Research March 2009 – Michelle Mascarenhas-Swan
• Climate Justice – A Global View, Colorlines – Gopal Dayaneni
• Principles of Earth Democracy – Vandana Shiva
• What’s Fair? Consumers and Climate Change, Redefining Progress – K. Ansje Miller
• The Right to Ecological Development, Left Turn – Jeff Conant
• This is What Denial Does – George Monbiot
• Who Gains from the Green Economy, Colorlines – Preeti Mangal, Tram Nguyen
• Food, Finance and Climate, Triple Crisis, A Three-Fold Opportunity – Vandana Shiva
• Green Market Hustlers– M.K. Dorsey
• What’s Missing from the Climate Talks? Justice! – Friends of the Earth International
• Indigenous Peoples’ Guide, False Solutions to Climate Change Indigenous Environmental Network
• The City That Ended Hunger Frances Moore Lappe, Belo Horizonte
• Policy Link, Healthy Food for All: Building Equitable and Healthy Food Systems in Detroit and Oakland
• Who Says You Can’t Change The World, Just Economies and Societies in an Unjust Planet – Beverly Bell and Other Worlds Collective
• A Call To Innovation – smartMeme
• Rich, Poor and Climate Change -Rachel Oliver, CNN
• The Poor Are Hit the Hardest By Climate Change, But Contribute the Least to it, Seattle PI – Poplock
• The Climate Gap– Poor Minorities Hardest Hit By Climate Change, New American Media– Ngoc Nugyen
• On The Threshold of a Global Water Crisis – Maude Barlow
• Water Wars, Excerpts from Water Wars Book – Vandana Shiva
• An Indigenous Perspective on Feminism, Militarism and the The Environment– Winona La Duke
• Greenhouse Gangsters vs. Climate Justice, Corpwatch – Kenny Bruno, Joshua Karliner, & China Brotsky
• Anti-Racism for Global Justice reader Catalyst Project
• Decolonize This! reader Catalyst Project
• Leadership Development and Collective Liberation reader Catalyst Project