Resource Library

In this blog post from January 2021, Brittany Bennett, the Data Director for Sunrise Movement, argues that in order to become a data-driven organization, the people in charge of the data and data management need to be oriented towards serving the organizers as their first priority. “[W]when you cannot deliver accurate results quick to organizers, you lose their buy in to your system. And when your organizers do not use your systems, your organizations becomes less data driven.”

In this blog post from May 2021, Brittany Bennett, the Data Director for Sunrise Movement, breaks down her five metrics for measuring people power in a movement. Using a table of all a supporter’s actions over the course of their engagement with Sunrise in chronological order – the “one table to rule them all – Ms. Bennett identifies five metrics that offer insight into the efficacy of an organization’s organizing and campaign work. She delineates each of them links them back to the table, and show how they can be used to align an organization’s programs in order to maximize its organizing.    

Many corporations and governments are advancing “net zero” climate plans that fail to provide real solutions to addressing climate change and cutting emissions. These plans allow polluting industries to escape responsibility to address climate change and shift the burden of climate action to frontline communities.

Movement organizations can make various decisions to find the right balance between breadth versus depth and unity versus autonomy. This report synthesizes hard fought lessons that organizers have learned in the face of complex challenges related to organizational structure. Movement organizations need to have the breadth—the capacity to organize the masses at scale. At the same time, movements need “cadres” with deep leadership capacity in order to be able to organize strategically in the face of constant uncertainty and local complexity. Organizing also requires unity—coordination to unify our power and resources such that the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts. On the other hand, people need autonomy in order to be able to take initiative, unleash their creativity, adapt to the particularities of their context and feel agency in the movement. Movements need to develop structures of leadership and clear authority that can manage the competing demands to create unity and enable autonomy. This report provides general lessons and some specific tips to find the right balance of breadth versus depth and unity versus autonomy.

This week’s Insight recaps our Research + Experimentation 9 convening last week, highlighting some of the top research and movement strategies from the field in the past year. We’ve also got a climate equity survey, upcoming trainings, and job listings.