Issue: Organizational Development

The “Before Action Review” is a series of questions for a team to answer together to improve their collective project. The five questions are: What is our intended result? What are our success measures? What challenges will we face? What did we learn from last time? What do we think will make us successful this time? The “After Action Review” is a similar set of questions to digest together, as a team, after a project attempt: What is our intended result? What were our actual results? What caused our results? What lessons should we take forward for next time? These kinds of collective planning and processing create the conditions for people to develop their: knowledge — information or understanding gained from experience or education; skills — the ability to do something that comes from training, experience, or practice; and wisdom — the ability to contemplate and act using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense and insight.

Most protest movements have little success in achieving their aims, or otherwise positive outcomes—but a small percentage of protest movements will achieve outcomes large enough to warrant funding a portfolio of social movement organizations. This resource may be useful for grantmakers and advocates who want to pursue the most effective ways to bring about change for a given issue, particularly on climate change or animal welfare. There is solid evidence that protests can cause small changes in public opinion on an issue (swaying about 2-5% of the population). There is some evidence—but less—that protest movement activity can bring about policy change.