Commons Projects

The Commons provides customised services to organisations and networks engaged in social change activities. This includes collating resource kits, developing curriculum, designing and cataloguing resource libraries, hosting collections, writing case studies, researching issues and more.

Read about some of our projects below. Do you have a project you would like to work with us on? Let us know your ideas!

Title reads making advocacy accessible. Illustration of a group of people holding protest banners.
Text reads Commons Conversations Podcast: Our conversations explore insights into activism, learning in movements and radical history. There is an icon of a microphone and yellow wavy lines in the top and bottom of the image.

Movement Monitor: Measuring the Impact of the Australian Climate Movement

The Movement Monitor is a two year project started in 2023 that will develop a comprehensive movement measurement methodology and apply it to the Australian climate movement.

The project is run by researchers at the Commons Library with input from academics, international movement experts, and many stakeholders in the Australian climate movement. 

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Making Advocacy Accessible Project

The Making Advocacy Accessible project was a project run by the Commons Library with guidance from People With Disability Australia and the Council for Intellectual Disability in 2023.

A new collection was created with Easy Read publications, guides to improving accessibility, and stories of campaigns led by people with disability.

Thanks to State Trustees Victoria for funding this project.

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Commons Conversations: Insights into Activism Podcast

The Commons Conversations Podcast is an Australian summer series of radio programs in which campaigners share their experiences and insights into activism, learning in movements, radical history and more.

The program is broadcast by Community Radio 3CR in Australia and produced by the Commons Social Change Library.

Get Listening!

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screenshot of Australian Trade Union Institute ATUI library website

Mapping Community Organising Models

This research project explored different organising models being utilised in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand.

The project included a survey of organisations that use organising as part of their advocacy. The results are available to the public on the Commons.

The project was a collaboration between the Commons Library and Australian Progress.

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Leading Change Network Resource Center

In 2021 the Leading Change Network LCN needed a professional platform for community organisers to find resources. Impressed with the way the Commons was set up LCN engaged the Commons to design and develop a Resource Center. The new Resource Center was launched in 2022 and the Commons librarians continue to provide ongoing support to the team at LCN.

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Australian Trade Union Institute Library

With many diverse resources in many different places ATUI recognised the need to provide a simple, easy to use platform for their members to access resources. In 2023 ATUI engaged the Commons to set up a library with a similar structure to the Commons.

As part of this work the Commons also helped set up the Australian Workers Film Guide to be a searchable database.

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It’s a delight to be working with The Commons on the Organising Models Mapping project. We share a passion for deepening our collective knowledge around community organising.

Holly and the team bring valuable experience in collecting, collating, and disseminating practice wisdom to the project that will make it all the more useful for the progressive sector.

Anita Tang
Community Organising Director, Australian Progress

The Leading Change Network has always wanted to give organizers and organizations access to community organizing resources in a professional, easy to find way. Thanks to the support of the Commons Social Change Library we have launched a new and improved Resource Center. Their librarian expertise and attention to detail merged with passion and knowledge about organizing led to a high quality output. I’m very happy with this partnership. 

Mais Irqsusi
Executive Director, Leading Change Network

COF logo. COF stands for Community Organising Fellowship. The logo consists of three intersecting lines in different colours making a triangular shape.

Providing a Platform for Organisations & Networks

The Commons provides a platform for various organisations and networks to host their resources without having to set up their own websites. It is also a space for resources to continue being shared when projects and websites have ended.

New resource collections recently added include:

Campaign Bootcamp
Democracy Resource Hub
Leaderful Organizing
Global Grassroots Support Network

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Community Organising Fellowship

The Community Organising Fellowship (COF) trains and mentors a network of community organisers and campaigners in Australia. COF recognised the need to update and improve their collection of training resources for the next round of intense 6 month training in 2022. The Commons librarians used their knowledge and experience as librarians and training facilitators to update and create a new collection of resources for new and future fellows. 
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Physician Advocacy Resource

In 2021 the Commons developed an online advocacy course and training sessions for the Royal Australasia College of Physicians RACP. The Physician Advocacy Resource covers the skills and competencies that enables physicians to advocate on important health issues. It covers examples of successful advocacy,  knowledge of government and parliamentary processes, policy and media, and skills like stakeholder analysis and framing messages.
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It has been a great pleasure and learning journey to work with the Commons Social Change Library in setting up the Democracy Resource Hub.
Holly and Antje have been instrumental partners as we sought to develop a place in which activists, organizers, bridgebuilders, and peacebuilders from around the world can find tools and resources in their work to push back against democratic backsliding.

Tabatha Pilgrim Thompson & Bayingana Simon
Democracy Resource Hub

The Commons Library helped the Community Organising Fellowship review and update our collection of training resources for 2022. Holly Hammond used her knowledge and experience as both a librarian and training facilitator to guide us through what was a very big project. We’ve received excellent feedback about the comprehensive quality of our resource library this year. Fellows are using the new resources in their campaigning and organising practice every day.

Max Smith
Director, Community Organising Fellowship

Have a Project in Mind?

Let’s Get Started!