Looking for articles, books, case studies, tips about social change and activism? You’ve found the right place – The Commons Social Change Library.
This planning template prompts you to apply a number of different campaign strategy, community organising, and civil resistance concepts and tools. Copy the template into your own document. As you complete each section delete the instructions (text in italics) until you have your own plan, or initial document to discuss in your organisation.
This handbook is a practical and accessible introduction to the importance of values and frames for organisations working towards a more sustainable and just society.
Australian Progress has prepared this 40-point summary of Pastor Rick Warren’s bestselling book The Purpose Driven Church.
A thorough checklist to help you prepare for traditional and social media in the lead up to an action, including some considerations for non-violent direct actions. Download as a handy printable pdf from the box at the bottom of this page.
This is a resource to help you test your messages. It is designed for campaigners who have little or no experience with message testing.
The PIRC, the New Economics Foundation, NEON and the FrameWorks Institute have launched two story strategies that progressives can use to shift thinking on the economy. They’re built on values and metaphors that encourage the hope that change is possible and increase people’s support for progressive policies.
Weathercocks and Signposts, a report from WWF, critically reassesses current approaches to motivating environmentally-friendly behaviour change.
Common Cause for Nature contains many lessons based on academic research on how to spark behaviour changes. The analysis showed that there are competing sets of human values within each of us which can be encouraged and discouraged by language and experience.
Information about How to Make Trouble and Influence People, including reviews of the two editions. The book offers an alternative history of Australia, chronicling how it “has progressed by a series of little rebellions”.
This overview of campaign strategy elements is offered to clarify language shared by campaigners. The elements include campaign focus and goals; vision; situational analysis; critical path analysis; organisational considerations; allies, constituents and targets; objectives; tactics; evaluation and success indicators.
The Building Power guide is for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who want to change the world. It includes several training resources to build capacity for campaigning, such as explorations of change-making, power, strategy and leadership development.
A collection of quotes to be used as part of training on strategic nonviolence and nonviolent direct action.
This handbook, based on the work of Marshall Ganz, aims to support you in developing your capacity for effective community organizing. It covers five key practices of organizing to build people power for change.
This excerpt from the Community Organising Guide provides an introduction to community organising. Organising is about generating and wielding people power.
The Working with your elected representatives guide by Friends of the Earth covers some of the different ways to work with, or lobby, your local elected representatives.
Stuck in a rut when it comes to campaign tactics? Explore Gene Sharp’s 198 methods of nonviolent action which are classified into three categories: nonviolent protest and persuasion, noncooperation (social, economic, and political), and nonviolent intervention.
Digital campaigning – what works and what doesn’t? Get Up shares it learnings of digital experimentation and analytics.
Top tips from Friends of the Earth (England, Wales & Northern Ireland) on how to use Twitter and Facebook as a powerful tool for campaigning.
US activist and educator Daniel Hunter shares important tips for sustaining ourselves and our movements in the face of challenging times. He outlines seven behaviors that we could incorporate into our groups so we can keep taking powerful and strategic actions.
Formed in 1979, Billboard Utilising Graffitists Against Unhealthy Promotions (BUGA-UP) made its mark on hoardings around the nation. By revising advertising slogans and disrupting tobacco-sponsored events, the group revealed the true cost of tobacco and alcohol company deception.