Introduction
Resources from a webinar by the Commons Library and the Leading Change Network (LCN) about learning how to document your organizing and campaigning.
Documentation is not a luxury; it’s a movement necessity.
About the Webinar
When was the last time you documented your organizing campaign – the ups and the downs, the stories, the lessons learned?
Behind every campaign, there is a journey of courage, collaboration, struggles, victories, and deep learning. But too often, those stories and learnings fade once the moment passes. What if we could preserve them? Pass them on? Use them to teach, to inspire, and to build stronger movements!
Campaign stories are vital to our movements – they are powerful sources of hope and learning, and living proof of the change that is possible when people come together. Through the act of documentation, we are able to make sense of our experiences, and tell the history of our people and our work in a world where our voices are often silenced and undermined.
But we know that it’s not always easy to do – with the urgency of our work, many organizers struggle to find the time and capacity for proper documentation, or lack tools and resources available.
The learning objectives of the webinar were to:
- understand the importance of telling our own stories of hope and power in our campaigns and organizing work.
- learn about the diverse ways of documenting campaigns, including written, visual, auditory, etc.
- learn how to use the How to document your campaign guide and other tools to capture and share your learnings and experiences.
- feel confident and inspired about exploring various ways to sketch your campaign journeys.
Webinar Write Up
How to Document Your Campaign Session Write-up
Webinar Resources
Explore resources shared in the webinar.
Leading Change Network LCN
Weaving the Threads Together: How to Document your Campaign
Commons Library
Commons Library Documenting Case Studies Webinar Handout (1 pg PDF)
- Campaign Case Study Template
A campaign case study template to get you started in capturing the details of your campaign to capture lessons for others and the future. - Learning from Peers and the Past: Writing Case Studies
This article provides tips for writing activist case studies that provide campaigners with opportunities to learn from peers and the past. - Writing and Using Campaign Case Studies Webinar
Webinar by the Commons Social Change Library for Changemakers and Activists – Video of how to write and capture case studies. - Conducting Interviews for Articles, Research & More
This article provides tips on how to run effective interviews for articles, case studies, research projects and podcasts - Case Studies in the Commons Library
Explore case studies in the library including many different formats – interviews, essays, books, articles, films, timelines and speeches.
Examples of Different Types and Ways of Gathering Case Studies
Brief Accounts
- How defeating Keystone XL built a bolder, savvier climate movement
A magazine style article telling the story of the campaign. - Working with Influencers: #NurseTok Case Study
A short case study of a union campaign to get fair and equal pay for nurses and midwives and how they engaged with nurse influencers on TikTok to amplify their message and build support. - From Little Things Big Things Grow and Tiny Sparks & Turning Points – timelines with very brief descriptions of historic activism.
Case Study Databases
- Environmental Justice Atlas
e.g Closure of Alcoa coal fired power station closure (Anglesea, Australia) - Global Nonviolent Action Database
e.g Franklin River Campaign (Tasmania, Australia) - Participedia
e.g. Raising minimum wage (USA) - New Tactics in Human Rightss: Stories and Victories
e.g. Plan B: Using Secondary Protests to Undermine Repression (Otpor, Serbia) - Beautiful Trouble Toolbox Stories
e.g. Billionaires for Bush creative activism (USA 2004) - Oxfam Case Studies
e.g. Pathways to a Fast and Just Energy Transition: Insights from Clean Energy Case Studies
Every organiser should have a collection of ‘hope stories’ they can use to inspire and persuade people to step into action and show them that collective action works.
Interviews & Oral Histories into Written Format
- Organising! A Remedy for Despair: How Workers at the University of Melbourne won back $45 million in Stolen Wages
A case study on how casual workers at the University of Melbourne in Australia got organised and won back $45 million in Stolen Wages. This case study gathered interviews into a booklet and a longer document. - Always look on the bright side of life: The AIDEX ’91 story
This book length oral history combines text with lengthy quotes from a range of protesters to create a narrative and draw out lessons. - Podcast and Article – How Decades of Fast Food Worker Organising Lead to “The Fight for 15”
This interview turned into a podcast and article about the famous Fight for 15 campaign in the United States.
Interviews into Podcasts
- Commons Conversations Podcast: Insights into Activism
The Commons interviews campaigners and organisers to gather case studies that might otherwise never be captured. - The Craft of Campaigns: A Podcast for Organisers
In each episode they interview organizers about how a campaign unfolded, strategy decisions, and lessons learned for the current moment. - Faces of Change: Podcast by Marshall Ganz
Podcast with Marshall Ganz and leaders about how they organized their communities and built the power their people need to achieve real change.
Gathering Several Case Studies
- Confronting Authoritarianism and Organizing Resistance: Case Studies and Lessons Learned
A collection of case studies and lessons learned from around the world about confronting authoritarianism and organizing resistance. - Breaking the Mold: Civil Society Actors Influence Policy-Making in the Arab World – Tunisian Case Studies
These case studies follow a similar formula including background, chronology, supporting and opposing arguments, defining moment, strategies, campaign’s success.
Presentations & Slides
- Organising Story-telling Labs by 350.org
Here is a collection of different case studies and stories of organising and movements from across the globe collated and presented by 350.org in a slides format.
In Depth Reports & Theses
- Australian Campaign Case Study: Stop Adani, 2012 – 2022
This case study used the case study template to document the campaign to stop the Adani mine in Australia. - The Power of Organizing: Stories of Community Organizing Campaigns from across Europe
This study documents the findings of community organizers working in Central and Southeastern Europe. Read this study if you learn best from case studies of the practice of community organizing written by the people who were there. - 6 Minutes: Community Organizing in Amman, Jordan (Case study)
An in depth case study and video of a community organizing campaign in Jordan to get the community reading.
Timelines
- Marriage Equality Timeline and Reflection
A brief campaign timeline which is followed by links to articles about the campaign from different participants and commentators. - The Jabiluka Blockade – 22 years on
A collection of resources on the Jabiluka Blockade in Australia that stopped a uranium mine. This article includes a timeline, podcasts, videos and archived websites. - Environmental Blockading in Australia and Around the World – Timeline 1974-1997
- People With Disability Australian Protest Timeline
- Direct Action to Voter Registration: Case Study, Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee SNCC (US) from 1960 – 1962
Training & Skills
Do you have a situation in mind already and what lessons could be drawn from it? Or do you have particular lessons, skills or points in mind and what kind of situation do you need to illustrate those?
- Gurindji Land Rights Struggle: Case study & training guide
An essay combined with a training exercise. - Naming an Advocacy Campaign
This article about a skill uses a series of short case studies at the end to illustrate key points. - Australian Actions at the Point of Assumption
An article which uses a series of short examples to illustrate key points to do with framing.
Visual
- The Power of Protest Stories by Amnesty International Australia
Beautifully illustrated ‘comic style’ stories of 3 activists who have used protest as a tool to fight for human rights.
Webinars, Workshops & Conferences
From presentations and workshops to resources where these case studies can be shared more broadly.
- Refugees Welcome: An Organising Case Study by Leading Change Network
Leading Change Network ran a workshop on Orientation to Organizing and drew on the UK-based Refugees Welcome movement led by Citizens UK as a case study. - Fighting Back Against Authoritarianism in Brazil
Ricardo Borges Martins shares how organisers at the communications lab, Quid, used powerful organising and digital strategies to build civic engagement and overcome the far right in Brazil. Ricardo presented this case study at FWD+Organise 2024, a conference hosted by Australian Progress. The Commons librarians captured his presentation, supplemented it with other resources and published Ricardo’s case study - Behind the scenes of Sunrise’s volunteer-led phone bank program by Powerlabs
A webinar by Powerlabs captures with video and in an article how the Sunrise Movement (USA) created the volunteer team structure that powered 6.2 million phone calls for electoral impact.
Support to Document Campaigns
Does your organisation have an important story to share?
The Commons Library team can help you tell it. Options include:
- Contract The Commons to research and prepare the case study
- Fund a Research Fellowship so a member of your team can learn research skills, collate a case study, and get support and feedback from experienced researchers
- Pitch a Commons Conversation podcast episode with participants in your campaign
Contact the Commons Librarians for more information.
Explore Further
- Explore more case studies on the Leading Change Network Resource Center
(Note: Some resources are member access only) - Explore more case studies on The Commons Library
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