Looking for articles, books, case studies, tips about social change and activism? You’ve found the right place – The Commons Social Change Library.
Consciousness raising was a key element of the second wave women’s movement enabling women to recognise that the personal is political. This article gives an overview of group consciousness raising processes relevant for any group based on a shared identity or experience of oppression.
Why not take some time out to reflect on the year that was, before jumping in to plans for the next? Different approaches to reflection are explored including journalling, art and ritual. Plus there’s a handy worksheet which you can use (at any time of the year).
Community organisers (and other change agents) have some excellent tools that can maximise the likelihood of making healthy goals a reality. This article will tune up your organising smarts as well as your health and wellbeing.
Analysis of Beth Kanter & Aliza Sherman’s argument that nonprofits should transform their workplace culture to have more productive & happier workers.
Hope in the Dark was written by Rebecca Solnit to help activists and campaigners find hope in times of struggle. Here Matt Ross reviews the American author’s arguments for keeping the faith in times of despair.
A book review of The Transition Handbook by Rob Hopkins with emphasis on its insights around the emotional & psychological impact of climate change.
This article explores some of the ‘cognitive errors’ or ‘traps’ that contribute to activist burnout. Read through this list and see if you might need to adjust your perspective, in the interests of your health, wellbeing and effectiveness.
Humanitarian aid workers are at significant risk of burnout and trauma. Martina Nicolls explains the challenges unique to aid workers.
In the second part of this article Mark and Paul Engler further explore Bill Moyer’s Movement Action Plan and its implications for social movements.
We tend to talk about activist burnout as an individualised experience – but the Movement Action Plan, a framework for understanding social movements, factors in perception of failure, providing insights and hope for navigating the downs in movement life.
The Plan to Thrive Activist Health & Wellbeing Survey asked ‘what motivates you to engage in activism’? A summary of the survey revealed 8 commons themes.
Summary of the results and trends from a survey on the positive impacts of activism and campaigning has on peoples health and wellbeing.
A toolkit to accelerate the planning process so we can get campaigns out the door faster to create more effective people powered campaigns.
5 tools to help you plan your campaign strategy including templates on calls to action, ladder of engagement, timelines, team culture, campaign canvas…
3 tools to test early versions of campaign ideas with target audiences starting with deciding on what to prototype. These tools are by Mobilisation Lab.
6 tools for creative idea generation for your next campaign by Mobilisation Lab e.g. mind maps, idea generation, picture prompts, prototypes, etc.
9 tools to deepen your understanding of the people you want to engage in campaigns e.g. personas, framing worksheet, questioning guide, by Mobilisation Lab.
7 tools for defining your campaign problem come from The Campaign Accelerator Toolkit by MobLab. Where will your campaign go? Which problems will you focus on solving?
Is your campaign about people, or staff? Distributed, or centralised? This worksheet outlines six factors to think about when analysing how ‘open’ your campaigns are, from the participants of MobLab’s Open Campaigns Camp.
This Context Map template allows a team to foster a collective understanding of the overall context in which a campaign is happening.