Resource Library

Movement organizations can run multiple types of campaigns—and momentum is a key factor to harness for campaign victories. This report from the movement training organization Momentum describes what a campaign is, types of campaigns, ways movements run campaigns, and the necessary role of campaign momentum and trigger events. This report provides detailed examples of different types of campaigns (e.g., structure-based organizing, mass protest, hybrid) and their strengths and weaknesses. It also describes the differences between distributed versus decentralized national campaigns. Lastly, it prepares movement organizations for how to react to trigger events that can be harnessed for campaign momentum.

Youth and young adult climate advocates can help motivate others to organize. Younger generations have the most to lose from climate change, and most Gen Z youth are concerned about climate change. Yet, often young people are left with the impression that their peers and public figures do not care. Even still, there is a lack of diversity in the public messaging around climate change, which includes a lack diversity of generational views. Virgin Media O2 and Global Action Plan have put together a short report highlighting some potential actions that advocates could use to encourage and increase youth participation. Advocates interested in increasing younger participation or interest should continue considering their messaging in terms of social and racial diversity, but also in terms of generational diversity.

When communicating about science, prioritize inclusion, equity, and intersectionality. Communicating science can be hard, and in particular it can be hard to communicate in an inclusive, respectful way that incorporates diverse perspectives and backgrounds. Inclusive science communication works to encourage folks to acknowledge systemic inequities and personal biases, while increase diverse and collaborative participation in and quality of STEMM (science, technology, meth and medicine) research. In this starter kit, you’ll find the key traits of inclusive science communication (intentionality, reciprocity, and reflexivity), as well as tools in how to incorporate those traits into your own work.

When faced with challenges to their power, social movement organizations can revise their structure in different ways to solve different problems. For example, the Sunrise Movement has engaged its membership in an attempt to decentralize some power from its national staff to local hubs. Color Of Change expanded its staff-driven approach to create events and local groups for social engagement and localized projects, in addition to refocusing its campaign goals to local elections. United for Respect has experienced member and staff growth, experimenting by organizing staff by campaign and by role, settling on a hybrid structure, utilizing both. Other organizations—ISAIAH, New York Working Families Party, and Florida’s Statewide Alignment Group—have also re-structured in illuminating ways. This report employs useful metaphors to describe different group structures, including “boat”, “big tent”, “Rubik’s Cube”, “house”, “stool”, and “fractal”.             

California and the US are increasingly beset by climate-fueled disasters like wildfires, extreme heat, and power blackouts. These events put additional stress on frayed hard and social infrastructure systems, and disproportionately impact working-class communities of color. To adapt to these changes, society must update our notion of disaster response to increase resilience in these systems before disasters strike. This report offers two models for this response: 1) building and normalizing resilience hubs where community members gather and organize both in good times and bad, and 2) increasing in-home resilience by recognizing homecare workers as effective agents for assisting vulnerable populations and bridging authorities and the frontlines. The report goes on to recommend specific ways to set up resilience hubs, train care workers, and develop forward-thinking emergency response plans to avert human disasters after natural disasters.