Everything you need to know to align your NGO with movements
Most of the NGO's I know have come a long way towards making themselves more useful when citizen-led social movements and big change moments (that we work so hard to make happen) actually show up. But it's still tricky work to...
Seattle99.org: an ugly 20 year old website’s online organizing legacy
Did you know we used to build websites? Here’s a story from a 20 year old beauty that helped shut down the WTO. The LA Times called it “the world’s first online organizing” site.
What’s the difference between “distributed” and “decentralized” organizing?
As people-powered campaigning is clearly a practice on the rise, largely inspired by the dramatic rise of progressive grassroots movements, we often hear NGOs asking for more clarity on what kind of model would work best for...
SURVEY: The quest for people-powered campaigning metrics
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it", as they say in business circles. In the progressive advocacy world, we could easily swap out “manage” with the words “fund”, “support” and “defend.” Finding a coherent set of people-powered campaigning metrics is...
Need some summer inspiration?
These are not easy times to be doing social change work, but folks we’re working with continue to push bold, innovative new projects that aim to heal our world, our hearts, and our culture. We’re not in the habit of writing the ‘look how busy we are’ kind of newsletter, but in the hopes of inspiring you, here’s a peak at our full summer workbench.
Wary of consultants?
Sometimes I cringe a little when being introduced as a consultant, especially in these anti-establishment times. It’s almost as if some folks keep a garlic necklace handy to fight off an unwanted bite. I’m certainly no fan of many consultancies that build in...
The simple “tech stack” behind leading people-powered campaigns
Overall, we observe that the tools and systems used by distributed organizing leaders are relatively inexpensive, “plug and play” – in the sense that they can rapidly be set up and deployed to support programs – and accessible in the sense that they are user-friendly or based on platforms that supporters and organizers already use and therefore do not require special training or a long adaptation period.
The six building blocks of distributed organizing campaigns (FREE DOWNLOAD)
To support organizations rolling out distributed organizing campaigns, we have put together a campaign design framework drawn from the best practices of the dozens of successful distributed organizing networks we have been involved in or have studied closely.
Ready for a distributed organizing deep dive?
As campaign innovation geeks we’ve been tracking the evolution of distributed organizing over the years but have to say we’ve never seen such rapid adoption of this trend since the 2016 U.S. election. With the Bernie Sanders primary campaign and its Big...
Your boss needs to read this book
If you've still got too much "old" power driving your institution, here's something to share with your boss, board and management team. New Power, by Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms is just the thing to create a stronger sense of urgency and alignment towards updating...
Report: a proven way to activate grassroots power and win campaigns
For the past year we’ve been helping a new advocacy tools startup called New/Mode. We believe in the power of their "targeted engagement" tools to support the progressive movement to build our people power and target that grassroots energy at decision makers so that...
Blueprints for Change: Open how-to guides for progressive campaigners
We’re proud to support Blueprints for Change, an open library of advocacy how-to’s put together by campaign innovators in order to help progressive organizers and groups up their game more quickly.
How does campaign innovation happen?
Insights from two great advocacy case studies that Tom Liacas recently presented at the Frank Gathering in Florida.
NetChange in New Zealand – upcoming trainings
Thanks to the New Zealand Drug Foundation, we’ll be heading back to the Asia-Pacific region next month to share our insights into modern organizing and mobilizing techniques with progressive movement kiwis.
What makes nonprofit digital teams successful today? SSIR article
A summary of the research findings and our insights around nonprofit digital teams in 2018 was published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.
Digital Teams in 2018: the new landscape of digital engagement
The health of teams working on digital strategy, platforms, and tools at non-profits has long been an indicator of their adoption of or resistance to wider trends around innovation and impact. Last fall we asked 80 advocacy-oriented nonprofits about the state of their...
A theory of change that made the impossible possible
Of all the hot campaign trends from the past few years, the one that’s probably most commonly implemented on new campaigns is the “theory of change”. A critical part of storytelling and engagement, having a credible one helps smart but cynical audiences decide whether...
Engagement Organizing is another way of looking at networked campaigns
Seems we're not the only ones obsessed with mapping the new features of the campaigning landscape! We recently shared how our friends at New/Mode are thinking about this and now we're happy to present a deeper dive into Matt Price's great new book Engagement...