Empower your groups and movements with training tools for organizing and activist work by Leaderful Organizing.
Introduction
Training programs are key to stronger social movements. This is also true when you want to focus on increasing the capacity for leaderful organizing.
The toolkit that we assembled for you on these pages will support you to create your own session plans, based on the assessment of the areas of growth that you have identified for your group.
While not all structures and practices that support leaderful organizing can easily be translated into ready made tools, there are a great many tools out there that can help your group to develop key competencies for leaderful organizing.
These competencies encompass insights, skills and sustainable practices that enable us to become more leaderful and to strengthen our efforts to build high impact organizations.
10 Leaderful Organizing Competencies
We have identified ten competency areas that are crucial for all groups and movements aspiring to become more leaderful.
- Values
- Organizing
- Transformative Collaboration
- Strategy
- Ongoing Learning
- Resilience and Regeneration
- Responsive Action
- Communication
- Power
- Leadership
There are no hard lines between these areas and when working on one area, you will often make progress in others as well. All the same, it felt helpful to name these areas specifically because some competencies are all too often overlooked in programs to build capacity for sustainable social change work. For this toolkit we have made an easy to use overview detailing the main competence areas that are being addressed by specific tools.
Some tools have been developed specifically to address leaderful organizing, many of them are used in other strands of activist training work, but either they lend themselves easily to empower leaderful organizing or they have been repurposed to support this work.
The tools and exercises described in this toolkit can be best used alongside the curriculum, which also included sample session plans, and the trainer’s handbook, which offers learnings and best practices shared by the trainers and organizers from ECON, LABO vzw, Ulex and Zelena Ackija, who have been involved in the leaderful organizing project.
Leaderful Organizing Tools by Competencies
Values
Organizing
- Flipping The Script – 1:1 Conversations
- Spectogram: People don’t get involved because…
- Republic of Kunbabony
Transformative Collaboration
- Blended Decision Making
- Conflict Icebergs
- DARCI Grid
- Giving and Receiving Feedback
- Good Meetings
- Organizational Structure Matrix
Strategy
Ongoing Learning
- Action Learning Cycle Framework
- Body Scanning / Cultivating Somatic Awareness
- Comfort, Learning and Panic Zone
- Giving and Receiving Feedback
Resilience and Regeneration
- Body Scanning / Cultivating Somatic Awareness
- Conflict Icebergs
- Following the Breath
- Mística
- Resilience Trees
Responsive Action
Communication
Power
- Blended Decision Making
- Body Scanning / Cultivating Somatic Awareness
- Chapati Power Diagrams
- Colombian Hypnosis
- DARCI Grid
- Organizational Structure Matrix
Leadership
A – Z List of Tools
Action Learning Cycle Framework
The Action Learning Cycle is an approach to learning which can strengthen the capacity for leaderful organizing.
Blended Decision Making
Blended Decision making allows for a collaborative, nuanced and power-informed approach to decision making in groups which can strengthen the capacity for leaderful organizing.
Body Scanning / Cultivating Somatic Awareness
Body Scanning is a wellbeing tool which can strengthen the capacity for holistic and regenerative leaderful organizing.
Chapati Power Diagrams
Chapati Power Diagrams are a leaderful organising tool which helps a group analyse power in a specific situation.
Colombian Hypnosis
Columbian Hypnosis is a theatrical group exercise which explores our tendencies and assumptions around power and leadership.
Comfort, Learning and Panic Zone
Comfort, Learning and Panic Zones is a leaderful organizing tool that can support us to create a transformative group culture.
Conflict Icebergs
Conflict Icebergs is a leaderful organising tool allowing us to understand conflicts and find empowering perspectives within them.
DARCI Grid
The DARCI grid (template) is a leaderful organising tool which allows for clarity in the distribution of roles and responsibilities.
Diversity Welcome
This activity makes visible the margins of the group and aims to support group members to feel seen and welcomed.
Flipping The Script – 1:1 Conversations
Flipping the Script is a tool for building confidence in one on one conversations in community organizing.
Following the Breath
Meditative tool to develop awareness in order to increase our capacity to show up, work together and bring about change in the world.
Giving and Receiving Feedback
Giving and Receiving feedback is a group exercise which supports authentic group relationships for long term collaboration.
Good Meetings
This leaderful organising tool is a roleplay exercise which teaches skills for facilitating and participating in good meetings.
Organizational Structure Matrix
Organizational Structure Matrix is a conversational tool to explore the benefits and disadvantages of different organizing structures.
Mística
The mística is a feminist ritual exercise that is both political and spiritual, focused on deep listening and trust.
Race Class Narrative Checklist
Race Class Narrative Checklist is a tool for increasing inclusion and solidarity in movements, by ensuring we push back against racism and classism.
Republic of Kunbabony
The Republic of Kunbábony is a group roleplay exercise which explores strategic ways to get involved in the political process.
Resilience Trees
Resilience Trees are a visual exercise to deepen our understanding of the practices that increase our resilience and strengthen our movements.
Spectogram: People don’t get involved because…
A tool to use in trainings on effective organising. This spectogram sets up the conversation on how to meet people where they are and move them into action.
Explore Further
- Leaderful Organizing
The Leaderful Organizing Toolkit is a comprehensive resource that offers practical guidance, tools, and examples for fostering leadership and collective action within organizations and movements. - Leadership and Leaderful Organizing: Research on Building Leaderful Movements in Europe
This research report explores the concept of leaderful organizing and provides research on building leaderful movements in Europe. - Leading Change: Leadership, Organization, and Social Movements
Marshall Ganz outlines Leadership Practices: Relationship, Story, Strategy, Action; Structure; and Leadership Development. - Community Organizing in France: A Collection of Resources from Organisez-Vous | Organisation collective en France : Recueil de ressources de l’association Organisez-Vous (French – Français)
Here is a collection of community organizing resources in French from Organisez-Vous (Organize!) in France. - Organising Stories and Lessons from the 350 Organising Story Telling Lab
Collection of different case studies / stories of organising and movements from across the globe collated and presented by 350.org. - High Trees Community Organising Self Assessment Toolkit
The High Trees Community Organising Self Assessment Toolkits will help you improve and track your progress in utilising a Community Organising approach. - Organising: Start Here
Organising builds people power for change. Here is a list of resources to get you started including introductions, different approaches, manuals, tactics, videos and more.