Introduction
Understand how progressive organisations navigate the complexities of community organising in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand.
This summary of an academic paper published in 2025 in The Organizing Journal summarises the first known exploration of the community organising landscape across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand.
The academic paper was developed from a project by the Commons Social Change Library, Australian Conservation Foundation, and Australian Progress which aimed to fill a gap in understanding how advocacy groups organise in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand.
The researchers invited 97 groups across the two countries that engage in community organising, and 24 of those group responses.
These were groups that mainly worked on
- climate change (44%),
- political issues like democratic rights and unions (29%),
- environmental concerns (21%), and
- social issues (4%).
By examining these survey responses, the research team uncovered patterns in how different groups structure their organising work and the common hurdles they face along the way.
Findings
One of the main findings is that these groups use a bespoke mix of community organising approaches. Most of them use mixed approaches that blend local, relationship-based organising with centralised professional support.
These groups developed these models with the aim of building collective power across substantial geographic distances, both in urban and regional communities. They mainly did this by developing leadership skills in individual volunteers, while also trying to mobilise large numbers of supporters around specific issues.
By effectively engaging large numbers of [people] in politically strategic locations, we can grow and amplify visible community support for climate action and deliver targeted public pressure to motivate key representatives to support durable, bipartisan climate solutions. – Survey respondent
While American organising traditions have been influential, Australian and New Zealand groups adapt these frameworks to suit their own contexts.
Geographic factors matter significantly, with 75% of surveyed groups building their structure around local groups despite working on broader national or global issues. This reflects the practical challenges of organising across vast distances while keeping personal connections strong.
This meant that the line between traditional community organising and social movement mobilisation was quite blurred. Rather than choosing either deep relationship building or mass mobilisation events, most groups tried to do both. Many survey respondents described their goal as building mass movements for systemic change.
Our goal is building a mass movement that can change systems. People and their alignment and active participation in mass numbers are our movement’s only source of power. – Survey respondent
Challenges
The study also identified three major challenges shared across different organising models:
- Finding and keeping volunteers and volunteer leaders
- Balancing volunteer independence with organisational priorities
- Getting enough resources to employ staff who can support volunteers and maintain the organising model
These challenges highlight broader tensions in managing voluntary participation in social change work, regardless of the specific approach used.
We enable quite a bit of autonomy in supporting activists to work on campaigns/initiatives that interest them, however, when this is too disparate, I worry it increases burnout risk. – Survey respondent
Constantly Evolving
Another key finding is how dynamic these organising models are, with 42% of respondents actively reviewing or changing their structures when surveyed. This suggests that organising approaches across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand are constantly evolving rather than being fixed systems.
Recommendations
The authors conclude by emphasising the need for
- better volunteer recruitment and retention practices,
- staff with strong relationship-building skills, and
- more appropriate ways to measure organising effectiveness beyond just counting participant numbers.
Their work helps us understand how progressive organisations navigate the complexities of community organising in Australia and New Zealand’s unique landscape.
Access Full Resource
Download the academic paper free from the Community Organizing Journal:
Explore Further
- Read the other articles in the Organising Models Mapping Project collection
- Explore more articles in The Organizing Journal Issue 1 open access collection: Reimagining the Scholarship and Practice of Community Organizing
- Approaches to Organising: Decentralised, Directed Network and Strike Circles Models
- Approaches to Organising: The Ganz Model
- Browse the Organising topic on The Commons