The SCARF Model for Psychological Safety in Groups
Learn about the SCARF Model for Psychological Safety in Groups by David Rock. It’s a tool for diagnosing and supporting good group health.
Tag
Models
Civil Resistance against Climate Change: What, when, who and how effective?
New research considers what Australian climate activism – specifically climate change civil resistance – looks like, how it is changing, and what it is achieving.
When to Talk and When to Fight: The Strategic Choice between Dialogue and Resistance
Understand when to talk and when to fight with this model for talking about conflict, negotiation and resistance.
Movement as Network: Connecting People and Organizations in the Environmental Movement
The environmental movement requires new organizational structures and strategies to succeed in this next phase of its evolution. This paper presents a model called “Movement as Network.” This model may have relevance to other social movements and networks, but the focus of this paper is using it to think about new ways of restructuring the environmental movement so it can be more powerful and more effective.
Detangling Digital: Has the concept of a centralised digital department outlived its usefulness?
Instead of a centralised place for all things digital, here’s a model for integrating digital skillsets back into every department of an organisation.
Organising deeply during crisis
Adele Neale, co-director of the Community Organising Fellowship, makes the case for deep listening and learning as part of organising during times of crisis, including the current pandemic.
Windows and Cycles: How Policy gets Made
This article helps advocates understand and intervene in policymaking more effectively by understanding the two main models of policymaking.
What the US can learn from Scandinavia in the struggle against inequality
In this interview, George Lakey explains what lessons can be learned from how movements in Scandinavia won and secured their egalitarian economic model.
TED talk: What new power looks like
We can see the power of distributed, crowd-sourced business models every day — witness Uber, Kickstarter, Airbnb. But veteran online activist Jeremy Heimans asks: When does that kind of “new power” start to work in politics? His surprising answer: Sooner than you think. It’s a bold argument about the future of politics and power; watch and see if you agree.
Purpose Driven Campaigning: 40 key principles for Growing Social Movements
Australian Progress has prepared this 40-point summary of Pastor Rick Warren’s bestselling book The Purpose Driven Church. The resource is based on Rick Warren’s experience of growing his church, Saddleback, from scratch to 20,000 members attending every week. Saddleback is now the eighth biggest church in the United States.
Frameworks for Winning Change
Social change can be messy and challenging work! It helps to have frameworks to make sense of the situations we find ourselves in and plan for the way ahead. This article outlines four models, by Martin Luther King, Jr, George Lakey, Bill Moyer and Tim Gee.
Levels of Commitment from Community to Core
Rick Warren focuses on five ‘circles of commitment’ – community, crowd, congregation, committed and core, and argue that it’s important to recognise where your supporters fall in these categories, and develop processes to move them from the outside in. An excerpt from Purpose Driven Campaigning.
Stages of Group Development
A handout and process guide for training workshops focused on working in groups and organisational effectiveness. The process introduces participants to Bruce Tuckman’s model of stages in group development; encourages participants to reflect on their experience of group development; and identifies and address challenges and opportunities that accompany each stage.
Consensus Decision Making
Consensus is a nonviolent decision-making process that aims to create the best possible decision for the group. The input and ideas of all participants are gathered and synthesized to arrive at a final decision that is acceptable to all. Through consensus, we are not only working to achieve better solutions, but also to promote the growth of trust and respect within the group.
Circles of Commitment: A Model of Engagement
This article outlines a model for thinking about the different levels of engagement of people involved in a campaign; what kinds of things people at each level can do, and what support they need to do those things; and how people can move from one level to another, aka a ‘ladder of engagement’. It also has implications for how we think about events and capacity, and for how well a campaign can scale.
Book review of This is an Uprising: How nonviolent revolt is shaping the twenty first century
Joel Dignam reviews Paul and Mark Engler’s 2016 book This is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century. TIAU is an analysis of social change, how it has occurred, and how contemporary campaigners may make it occur again.
How Organizations Develop Activists: A book review
Joel Dignam reviews Hahrie Han’s How Organizations Develop Activists. A key finding of Han’s research is that high-engagement chapters practise both organizing and mobilizing. The Voice for Indi campaign is considered as an Australian example of combining these two approaches.
On Conflict and Consensus
Making collective decisions and navigating conflict and are core activist skills. Conflict is usually viewed as an impediment to reaching agreements and disruptive to peaceful relationships. However, it is the underlying thesis of Consensus that nonviolent conflict is necessary and desirable.
Strategies For Peace
Johan Gultung identified three major approaches to peace: peacekeeping, peacemaking, peacebuilding. Strategies can be applied proactively, to prevent violence occurring or reactively to reduce the likelihood of violence reoccurring. Each strategy on its own cannot really be effective in creating peace without the application of the other strategies.
Empowered Fundraising
Anne O’Brien interviewed John Croft, developer of the Dragon Dreaming project model. John’s ‘Empowered Fundraising’ approach challenges groups to take their projects seriously and invite others to contribute funds, as a way to further their own social change values and make a difference in the world.