Holding our groups together in hard times
When social change campaigns experience setbacks it’s understandable this can lead to difficulties in activist groups. Here are some tips and further resources for holding groups together in hard times.
Format
Tips
How to use social media
Top tips from Friends of the Earth (England, Wales & Northern Ireland) on how to use Twitter and Facebook as a powerful tool for campaigning.
Tips for Election Recovery
Elections can take a heavy toll campaigners, organisers, and anyone else working and hoping for social and ecological justice. Now is a time for looking after ourselves and each other, to get in good shape for what comes next.
How to Make your Social Justice Event Accessible
Tips on how to make your next social justice event more accessible and inclusive including room arrangement, wayfinding, communications, etc.
Running Effective Campaign Debriefs
Every campaign is a learning opportunity. Make the most of this by planning for the post-campaign period and setting up debriefs. Here are some tips for campaigners and facilitators.
Media Checklist for Actions
A thorough checklist to help you prepare for traditional and social media in the lead up to an action, including some considerations for non-violent direct actions. Download as a handy printable pdf from the box at the bottom of this page.
Framing Equality Toolkit
This toolkit is a short guide to strategic communications, based on extensive research and building on the experience of activists and communicators from around the globe. It aims to provide a framework rather than a blueprint; helping you to ask the right questions rather than giving you the right answers.
How to tell compelling stories that move people to action: Narrative Handbook
Learn how to tell emotionally compelling stories, use the right frames, values and metaphors to shift the public conversation and take people where you want them to go and engage and strengthen the values that will engage more people more deeply.
Advice for pro-Indigenous white activists in Australia
These four short videos, two featuring Gary Foley and two featuring Robbie Thorpe, are essential viewing for non-Indigenous people seeking to act in solidarity with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Action group meetings
This tip sheet has been written to help you and your group work well together and achieve your objectives and highlights some group habits and actions that resilient community groups have relied on: effective meetings with an agreed agenda; clearly-defined roles; mindful decision-making; accountability; and inclusiveness.
Facilitating for Gender Balance
Men frequently participate more than women in meetings, forums and other events. This article outlines practical steps facilitators and participants can take to ensure women are heard.
Five Principles for Building Powerful Coalitions
Not all coalitions are made equal. While alliances between unions and community organizations are an important and useful strategy for social change, their power and success varies greatly depending on the strategic choices of those involved.
Overcoming the Top 3 Challenges to Self-Care
These videos introduce skills to work through common challenges around self-care: limited time; feeling guilty; and not actually working to nourish or support ourselves.
Introduction to Community Mapping
Community organisers need to continually analyse their communities. What’s going on that has implications for our issue and campaign? Which groups do we need to be connecting with? How is power being exercised?
A Stakeholders’ Guide to the Australian Senate
This guide is intended to be an introduction to the Senate and its procedures. It is designed to give NGO staff an understanding of the basics of the Senate and how to best achieve policy and campaigning goals.
How to Contact Australian Members of Parliament
Need to know how to contact Australian Senators and Members of Parliament? Here are contact lists and even some handy mailing labels.
Becoming Allies: Reaching across the Divide
Allies work is key to building strong and diverse groups and social movements. An ally is someone outside an oppressed group or identity, who commits to standing alongside those people.
Decolonizing Solidarity: Dilemmas and Directions for Supporters of Indigenous Struggles – Bookclub
Decolonizing Solidarity is a book by Clare Land which offers directions (and knotty dilemmas) to people seeking to support Indigenous Struggles. This article includes suggested guidelines for book clubs discussing Decolonizing Solidarity which are also beneficial for other groups doing anti-oppression and ally work.
A Resource for Activists Working Through Trauma
We need to talk about how we both prepare ourselves for, and support each other through our responses to stress and trauma, whether it be from police brutality, another institutional force, or from conflict within our own communities.
When Planning a Coalition, think of a RAINBOW
The RAINBOW framework draws on Amanda Tattersall’s extensive research and experience around building coalitions. Successful coalitions are built on strong relationships and clarity of purpose.