
ChangeMakers Organising School – Online Course
ChangeMakers Organising School – Training (videos and slides) to connect and deepen knowledge to organise for social change.
ChangeMakers Organising School – Training (videos and slides) to connect and deepen knowledge to organise for social change.
ChangeMakers Organising School – Training (videos and slides) to connect and deepen knowledge to organise for social change.
A theory of change can help guide campaigners, their teams and communities. James Whelan from the Change Agency addresses four common pitfalls and some remedies so your theory of change works for you and your team.
Links to useful resources in the area of advocacy, policy change, and social movement evaluation.
Holly Hammond’s presentation to Progress 2019 on ‘Rebels and Reformers Unite! Exploring roles in social change movements’. Social movements are made up of many individuals and organisations with varied strengths, perspectives and theories of change.
This planning template prompts you to apply a number of different campaign strategy, community organising, and civil resistance concepts and tools. Copy the template into your own document. As you complete each section delete the instructions (text in italics) until you have your own plan, or initial document to discuss in your organisation.
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.
Nadine Flood from the CPSU presents at Progress 2015 on the dynamic tension at the heart of the union movement’s theory of change – as both grassroots movement and the large representative and regulated institutions.
This article explores the ‘moving the rock’ concept put forward by Daniel Hunter in his book Strategy and Soul. The concept has been valuable for campaigners and organisations reassessing their theory of change and particularly how they engage politicians and supporters.
A process guide to be used in training workshops and planning sessions. The workshop introduces the idea of ‘policy windows’ and ‘political opportunity structure’ and enables participants to critically evaluate the political opportunity structure apparent in current campaigns.
The policy window is an opportunity for advocates of proposals to push their pet solutions, or to push attention to their special problems. When everything comes together a problem is recognised, a solution is developed and available in the policy community, a political change makes it the right time for policy change, and potential constraints are not severe.
A process guide to be used in training workshops and planning sessions about theories of change. This session facilitates political analysis, reflection and dialogue. Why start with a theory of change? This isn’t asking people to be academics, it’s just about being clear about our own and each other’s assumptions.
A process guide to be used in training workshops and planning sessions to identify the political assumptions that shape our opinions and analysis. Analysis and planning is improved by being aware of the lens through which we see the world. Our lens is influenced by our assumptions and values.
This is a training process guide to explore different approaches to solving community problems, investigate how different problems require different approaches to change to solve them, clarify the differences between community organising, community development, advocacy and service delivery.
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.
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.
Anne O’Brien reviews Ideas for Action: Relevant Theory for Radical Change by Cynthia Kaufman. Kaufman connects theory with the day to day dilemmas that activists face in the practical work of challenging injustice.
Aidan Rickett’s The Activists’ Handbook is a powerful guide to grassroots activism. Naomi Blackburn reviews the early chapters of the book which are particularly relevant to Theories of Change.
Getting clear on our theory of change can be personally empowering as well as important for alignment within organisations and campaigns. These notes are from a workshop by Naomi Blackburn, drawing on the Resource Manual for a Living Revolution and Australian Student Environment Network curriculum.
In the second part of this article Mark and Paul Engler further explore Bill Moyer’s Movement Action Plan and its implications for social movements.