Articles
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A Sacred Trust: Being A Paid Staff Person of a Base Organization
The tensions Maurice Mitchell highlights in ‘Building Resilient Organizations’ operate differently in base organizations. The solutions will be different, too.
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Halfpoint Toward a People-Powered Democracy
The 22nd Century Conference will bring together the pro-democracy movement to plan what it looks like to block the rise of the authoritarian movement while also advancing pro-democracy strategies.
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What Does It Look Like When We Build Our Power and Fight the Right?
Four organizing leaders talk about unity and struggle with centrist allies, building our progressive and left alignment, and what can stand in the way.
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Photo credit: Ferran Nadeu Lessons from Barcelona’s 8-Year Experiment in Radical Governance
The activists who took over the city hall of Catalonia’s capital have changed one of Europe’s preeminent cities for good, while also confronting the limits of being in power.
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Photo credits: David Kamba “They Go Low, We Go Deep”
This is a problem organizers and organizations confront every time they elect an ally to office: How can labor, community, and other peoples’ organizations keep politicians to their commitments after the election? Here’s how we did it.
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Photo credits: Alex Moore Hot Labor Summer
This summer’s labor fights are an important opportunity for an increasingly militant labor movement to win critical battles.
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Photo credits: Jackson King How a Black Led Corporate Accountability Campaign Is Winning in Detroit
Highlights of the successes of a corporate accountability campaign led by black grassroots organizations in holding corporations accountable for their actions and addressing systemic racial injustices.
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Courtesy of Prostock-Studio Back to Where It All Began
An interview with Anthony Thigpenn & Sabrina Smith of California Calls
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Getty Images How (Not) to Dismantle White Supremacy
Is the fixation on naming "white supremacy culture" overtaking the fight against white supremacy?
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The Case for Expanding Democracy Work
Aditi Juneja argues that national issue-based organizations, pro-democracy organizations, and funders should expand their work to support grassroots organizers and create a long-term vision for a movement for a more democratic country.
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Painted by Juana Alicia and Mike Konopacki Something Old, Something New: The Arc of Organizational Resilience
Kim Fellner draws on her experience with the National Organizers Alliance to look at the persistence—and shifts—of the challenges movement organizations face.
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Can movements keep politicians from inevitably selling out?
By understanding how mainstream political culture co-opts elected officials, grassroots groups can help them resist.
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Getty Images Building Better Leadership Pipelines
In “Building Resilient Organizations,” Maurice Mitchell articulates what many in the professional left have felt but are afraid to say; the once-stable ground of our movement has turned into a space with rising tensions, organizational infighting, and proxy wars that have undermined our ability to be effective.
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Building Bottom-Up Democracy Through Co-Governance
People’s movements are challenging oligarchic power and holding out a powerful vision of robust political and economic democracy to replace it, but our power so far remains marginal, and we are nowhere near ready to govern.
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Campaigning to Limit Comcast
Ten years ago, Philadelphia’s Media Mobilizing Project launched a campaign to force Comcast to provide service to working-class residents. It was a learning experience in “inside game” organizing that continues to shape the city’s progressive movements.
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A Powerful Tool for Campaigns and Crises
Too often, we base critical strategies on a series of unquestioned assumptions and untested relationships. Simulation exercises can improve strategy, build stronger relationships, and break down hierarchies.
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Community Organizing and Electoral Politics
Is Involvement in Elections a Source of Synergy—or Distraction?
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Building the Front, Strengthening Our Movement
This March 9 live-streamed features movement leaders who are actively fighting the Right while building bases and alliances for the long-term struggle for racial and economic justice and inclusive democracy.
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How Los Angeles Tenants Beat the Landlords—For Now
The rise of a renters’ movement and its electoral victories last November have reshaped some fundamental city policies.
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Getty Images The Great Escape: An Organizing Thriller
The Great Escape is oxygen for the organizer and fire for an organizing revival.