Articles

A wall in Bethlehem, Palestine with a painting of a woman wearing a black head covering. On her shoulder is a butterfly, a red flower and a heart. The text in the right hand corner reads 'A just peace for Palestine, means peace for Israel too.'

3 Key Insights for Building a Powerful and Loving Movement against Oppression in Palestine-Israel

Rae Abileah and Nadine Bloch from Beautiful Trouble shared these key insights during Israel’s bombing of Gaza in October 2023.

A large crowd of people standing in front of and on the Berlin Wall with the Brandenberg Gate in the background.

From the Berlin Wall to Today — Lessons for Harnessing the Moment of the Whirlwind

What mainstream commentators get wrong about the historic uprisings of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and what civil resistance gets right.

Cover of Knocking The Top Off: A People's History of Alcohol in Australia

Jean Young, Kath Williams and the Fight for Equal Pay

Read an excerpt from the book Knocking The Top Off: A People’s History of Alcohol in Australia about the fight for equal pay.

3 purple arrows of various shades going in a circle to the right. They represent the Delegation Cycle. Text reads '1. Agree on expections. 2. Stay engaged. 3. Create accountability and learning. 4. Adapt to fit the context.'

Managing to Change the World: The Delegation Cycle

Learn how to management & delegate better with the Delegation Cycle from Alison Green’s and Jerry Hauser’s book Managing to Change the World.

Movement Lesson: How Do We Build Movements that Welcome People?

Learn from research and Joe Solomon’s personal experience with his brother’s transformation on how to bring people into your movement.

How to Win by Thinking like Your Opponent: Lessons from 350 Australia’s Campaign Against the Galilee Basin

This story illustrates 350 Australia’s strategic decision-making process as they took on the largest coal export facility project in the world, showcasing their ability to think like their opponent and strategically target banks, ultimately selecting the Commonwealth as their primary focus for maximum impact.

How Healthy Campaigns Respond in the Face of Bad News

Examples – from 350.org and beyond – about ways people handled campaign losses in healthy, soul-giving, and strategic ways.

How Collective Action Communication Frames are used to Drive Action on Climate Justice

Insights into how Australian environmental groups use collective action frames in their communication on climate justice.

Bar graph with yellow bars. Figure 1: Most common understandings of climate justice shown as a percentage of all mentions found in Australian environmental group communication.

Climate Justice: What does it mean?

Many environmental and social change groups call for climate justice, but what does ‘climate justice’ actually mean?

Activist Digital Security Practices

This Knowledge Roundup about digital security practices for activists is from the Global Grassroots Support Network (GGSN).

global support grassroots network GGSN members on a video group call. Their faces are covered with smiley faces and smiley flowers to anonymize them for digital security reasons.

Supporting Grassroots Justice-oriented Activists Around the World: A Year’s Worth of Learnings

Grassroots activism often lacks funding & support but the Global Grassroots Support Network (GGSN) has brought together organizers to tackle common challenges and share resources.

Text over image reads Organising a civil disobedience so that new people want to do it again: Lessons from Ende Gelande. Four people are sitting on the ground in white workers suits.

Organising Civil Disobedience for Newcomers

350.org shares valuable lessons on organizing civil disobedience for newcomers, emphasizing trust-building, narrative development, preparation for repression, affinity groups, and post-action debriefing.

Creative Activism: Start Here

Suggestions from the Commons Librarians about resources to explore in the Arts & Creativity topic area – to help you bring more art and heart to your social change activities.

Organizing against the Far Right

This Knowledge Roundup about organizing against the far right is from the Global Grassroots Support Network (GGSN).

black screen with white writing - why would activists archive

Activist Archiving: Start Here

A list of articles and ideas from the Commons Librarians about resources to explore in archiving your work in social change.

5 black and white photos with a yellow wavy lines overlaying them. First image is of thousands of protestors at Walk on Washington, 2nd image is a portrait of a woman representing Rosa Parks, 3rd image is a portrait etching of Gandhi, fourth image is of a group of Aboriginal Australians protesting holding the Aboriginal flag, 5th image is protestors on a boat on the Franklin River. The heading reads 'Nonviolence Training: A short history".

Nonviolence Training: A Brief History

A brief history of nonviolence training around the world, Australia and in the Pacific by a group called Pt’Chang.

Leaderful Organizing Tool: Body Scanning and Cultivating Somatic Awareness

Body Scanning is a wellbeing tool which can strengthen the capacity for holistic and regenerative leaderful organizing.

Leaderful Organizing Tool: Comfort, Learning and Panic Zones

Comfort, Learning and Panic Zones is a leaderful organizing tool that can support us to create a transformative group culture.

How to Influence a Political “Frenemy”: Lessons from 350 Canada’s Climate Welcome

Lessons learned from 350.org Canada’s “Climate Welcome” protest that pressured Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to take bold climate action.

Writing to your MP

Tips from Oxfam about how to write a letter that will have maximum impact on a Member of Parliament.

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