Supporting organising and leadership
SUPPORTING
ORGANISING AND MOVEMENT
BUILDING
TOWARDS A GREEN, JUST AND FEMINIST FUTURE
Organising is about leadership that enables people to turn the resources they have into the power they need to make the change they want. MOVE’s Global Organising & Leadership Development Programme (GOLD) nurtures and sustains movements by providing leadership skills, analytical competencies, and tools to organise their constituencies, set visions, analyse contexts and mobilise support to pursue a strategy while keeping the movement alive and accountable to the constituencies. GOLD offers free self-paced foundational courses for all, while the most committed learners get tailored support based on an assessment of their movements' challenges.
Developing useful knowledge from and for social movements
Since 2011, ActionAid federation has been collaborating with movements, basing this work in its 30 years of experience of direct involvement in social change struggles, and a shared vision of secularism, democracy, feminism, and economic, ecological, and social justice.
MOVE supports action-research through partnerships with movement-minded organisations, research institutions and movements from the Global South based on the realities and practical experience of movements. This helps researchers, CSOs and others to understand how to meaningfully work with movements and provide applied learning of relevance to activists. We curate and share knowledge by engaging activists and movement leaders in important conversations through podcasts, webinars, blogs and shorter publications, e.g., on how mass movements remain in uential after a regime change, how climate movements can keep multinational companies accountable and how to include women in leadership roles to increase chances of victory.
Despite popular understanding, social movements include both mobilising and organising. Only focusing on protests and moments of mobilisation ignore key aspects of social movements that determines whether they succeed in creating change or not. The support mechanisms in MOVE are built around the different needs in the lifespan of movements; from initial mobilisation and peaks of optimism and attention to equally important moments of crisis and disillusion and in overcoming challenges to finally establish sustainable pathways for influence and change.
Encouraging and supporting CSOs and other stakeholders to be strong allies of movements around the world
WHAT WE DO
MOVE is collaborating with CSOs and other stakeholders such as governments, politicians, donors, and multilateral institutions on how best to support social movements politically or nancially in ways where the movement structure and political vision are respected. During the Copenhagen People Power Conference in October 2023, stakeholders will learn about the power and potential of movements to address the three biggest crises of today and gain insights into how to best support them. We organise a network of CSOs and support them in building an organisational infrastructure and mindset that allows strategic partnerships with movements.
Connecting people, movements and causes through physical events such as the annual Global People Power Forum (85+ practitioners and thought leaders) and safe online spaces to share skills, strategies and experiences on how to most effectively make change through a social movement.
Flexible funding for small scale actions when opportunities arise (‘direct action’ fund) or when context demand it (‘rapid response’ fund for individual activists in danger).
#Africans Rising: MOVE has given core support to the movement spanning more than 100 organisations and movements globally. In Senegal in 2020, Africans Rising provided capacity strengthening support to several women’s rights movements who collectively managed to ensure a new law criminalising rape and increasing the maximum penalty to life in prison. And during the COVID-19 pandemic when human right defenders and journalists were sent in jail in several countries, Africans Rising ran a big #FreeThem campaign, together with various organisations, activists and campaigners, which led to 87,109 prisoners from 32 African countries being released.
Strategic funding to build internal structures, recruitment and retention plans, and ne tune the long-term strate gies of the movement.
Action-research with practitioners and movement minded scholars and institutions, for example on how to measure and resist nuanced ways of repression or how to mobilise and support diaspora communities.
#Beautiful Trouble Toolkit: MOVE has since 2014 collaborated with the global activist collective Beautiful Trouble facilitating online sharing of tools for non-violent creative activism and movement building. Since 2017, the toolkit has been translated into 9 different languages facilitating online sharing of best practices by 800,000+ users. Tailormade toolkits have been designed, most recently The New Pan-African and the Myanmar coup edition, circulated online on secure channels few days after the 2021 coup. These tools are endorsed by activist icons like Vandana Shivai and Naomi Klein.
Curating and sharing lessons and insights and engage people in it through stories that inspire shared via blogs, webinars and short publications
Organising and leadership development through mentorship or capacity programs on how to build sustainable movements and employ campaign tactics including crafting messaging strat egies, planning protests and engaging power holders in dialogue.
Advocacy and solidarity actions to support social movements by adding attention, legitimacy and international pressure for their cause and to condemn crackdowns they may face.
HOW WE DO IT
Rooted network of local partners
#Youth4Parliament (Y4P): Over three years, the movement was assisted to grow to +80,000 members giving voice to the most disenfranchised youth during the Zambian general election in 2021. This led to more than 200 Y4P members being elected, incl. the rst female deputy mayor of Lusaka, and the youngest and only female youth member of Parliament as well as contributing to an extra 14% voter turnout. In his rst speech to the UN the 21st of August 2021, the U.S. President, Joe Biden, mentioned the great accomplishments of all young people in Zambia: “The authoritarians of the world may seek to claim the end of the age of democracy, but they’re wrong (...) The truth is, the democratic world is everywhere (…) It lives in the young people of Zambia, who harnessed the power of their vote for the rst time. Turning out in record numbers to denounce corruption and chart a new path for their country”
LEARN MORE
MAIL organise@globalplatforms.org
MOVE’s 5 regional hubs host local activities and training and ensure that relevant activists and movements are connected in the region. The hubs share ways of working, activities, solidarity actions across borders and knowledge through global digital events, annual celebration of the social movement of the year and the Global People Power Forum. We collaborate with ActionAid’s Global Platforms Network, which is spaces for youth-led training, organising and activism, located in more than 20 countries to ensure direct collaboration with rooted youth-led groups and movements in the different contexts.
WEB globalplatforms.org/move
Direct collaboration with movements
GOLD TRAINING gold-actionaidlearning.talentlms.com
BEAUTIFUL TROUBLE TOOLKIT beautifultrouble.org
NEWSLETTER globalplatforms.org/the-young-activist
FACEBOOK facebook.com/globalplatforms.org
DIRECT ACTION FUND https://beautifultrouble.org/directaction
MOVE implements, designs and pilots speci c support mechanisms together with social movements, based on their needs. Currently, it entails strategic support including funding for longer term sustainability, direct action grants, a rapid response fund for human rights defenders in danger and tailormade mentorship programs. Pilots currently include a structure for mass organisation through direct support of frontline activists and counter-surveil lance of phones. Based on our experiences from working in sensitive contexts, we have built a practice of tools and skills to ensure that those movements we work with are effective and safe.
Supporting organising and leadership
GLOBAL SOCIAL MOVEMENT CENTRE
SUPPORTING ORGANISING AND MOVEMENT BUILDING TOWARDS A GREEN, JUST AND FEMINIST FUTURE
Organising is about leadership that enables people to turn the resources they have into the power they need to make the change they want. MOVE’s Global Organising & Leadership Development Programme (GOLD) nurtures and sustains movements by providing leadership skills, analytical competencies, and tools to organise their constituencies, set visions, analyse contexts and mobilise support to pursue a strategy while keeping the movement alive and accountable to the constituencies. GOLD offers free self-paced foundational courses for all, while the most committed learners get tailored support based on an assessment of their movements' challenges.
Developing useful knowledge from and for social movements
Since 2011, ActionAid federation has been collaborating with movements, basing this work in its 30 years of experience of direct involvement in social change struggles, and a shared vision of secularism, democracy, feminism, and economic, ecological, and social justice.
MOVE supports action-research through partnerships with movement-minded organisations, research institutions and movements from the Global South based on the realities and practical experience of movements. This helps researchers, CSOs and others to understand how to meaningfully work with movements and provide applied learning of relevance to activists. We curate and share knowledge by engaging activists and movement leaders in important conversations through podcasts, webinars, blogs and shorter publications, e.g., on how mass movements remain in uential after a regime change, how climate movements can keep multinational companies accountable and how to include women in leadership roles to increase chances of victory.
Despite popular understanding, social movements include both mobilising and organising. Only focusing on protests and moments of mobilisation ignore key aspects of social movements that determines whether they succeed in creating change or not. The support mechanisms in MOVE are built around the different needs in the lifespan of movements; from initial mobilisation and peaks of optimism and attention to equally important moments of crisis and disillusion and in overcoming challenges to finally establish sustainable pathways for influence and change.
Encouraging and supporting CSOs and other stakeholders to be strong allies of movements around the world
WHAT WE DO
MOVE is collaborating with CSOs and other stakeholders such as governments, politicians, donors, and multilateral institutions on how best to support social movements politically or nancially in ways where the movement structure and political vision are respected. During the Copenhagen People Power Conference in October 2023, stakeholders will learn about the power and potential of movements to address the three biggest crises of today and gain insights into how to best support them. We organise a network of CSOs and support them in building an organisational infrastructure and mindset that allows strategic partnerships with movements.
Connecting people, movements and causes through physical events such as the annual Global People Power Forum (85+ practitioners and thought leaders) and safe online spaces to share skills, strategies and experiences on how to most effectively make change through a social movement.
Flexible funding for small scale actions when opportunities arise (‘direct action’ fund) or when context demand it (‘rapid response’ fund for individual activists in danger).
#Africans Rising: MOVE has given core support to the movement spanning more than 100 organisations and movements globally. In Senegal in 2020, Africans Rising provided capacity strengthening support to several women’s rights movements who collectively managed to ensure a new law criminalising rape and increasing the maximum penalty to life in prison. And during the COVID-19 pandemic when human right defenders and journalists were sent in jail in several countries, Africans Rising ran a big #FreeThem campaign, together with various organisations, activists and campaigners, which led to 87,109 prisoners from 32 African countries being released.
Strategic funding to build internal structures, recruitment and retention plans, and ne tune the long-term strate gies of the movement.
Action-research with practitioners and movement minded scholars and institutions, for example on how to measure and resist nuanced ways of repression or how to mobilise and support diaspora communities.
#Beautiful Trouble Toolkit: MOVE has since 2014 collaborated with the global activist collective Beautiful Trouble facilitating online sharing of tools for non-violent creative activism and movement building. Since 2017, the toolkit has been translated into 9 different languages facilitating online sharing of best practices by 800,000+ users. Tailormade toolkits have been designed, most recently The New Pan-African and the Myanmar coup edition, circulated online on secure channels few days after the 2021 coup. These tools are endorsed by activist icons like Vandana Shivai and Naomi Klein.
Curating and sharing lessons and insights and engage people in it through stories that inspire shared via blogs, webinars and short publications
Organising and leadership development through mentorship or capacity programs on how to build sustainable movements and employ campaign tactics including crafting messaging strat egies, planning protests and engaging power holders in dialogue.
Advocacy and solidarity actions to support social movements by adding attention, legitimacy and international pressure for their cause and to condemn crackdowns they may face.
HOW WE DO IT
Rooted network of local partners
#Youth4Parliament (Y4P): Over three years, the movement was assisted to grow to +80,000 members giving voice to the most disenfranchised youth during the Zambian general election in 2021. This led to more than 200 Y4P members being elected, incl. the rst female deputy mayor of Lusaka, and the youngest and only female youth member of Parliament as well as contributing to an extra 14% voter turnout. In his rst speech to the UN the 21st of August 2021, the U.S. President, Joe Biden, mentioned the great accomplishments of all young people in Zambia: “The authoritarians of the world may seek to claim the end of the age of democracy, but they’re wrong (...) The truth is, the democratic world is everywhere (…) It lives in the young people of Zambia, who harnessed the power of their vote for the rst time. Turning out in record numbers to denounce corruption and chart a new path for their country”
LEARN MORE
MAIL organise@globalplatforms.org
MOVE’s 5 regional hubs host local activities and training and ensure that relevant activists and movements are connected in the region. The hubs share ways of working, activities, solidarity actions across borders and knowledge through global digital events, annual celebration of the social movement of the year and the Global People Power Forum. We collaborate with ActionAid’s Global Platforms Network, which is spaces for youth-led training, organising and activism, located in more than 20 countries to ensure direct collaboration with rooted youth-led groups and movements in the different contexts.
WEB globalplatforms.org/move
Direct collaboration with movements
GOLD TRAINING gold-actionaidlearning.talentlms.com
BEAUTIFUL TROUBLE TOOLKIT beautifultrouble.org
NEWSLETTER globalplatforms.org/the-young-activist
FACEBOOK facebook.com/globalplatforms.org
DIRECT ACTION FUND https://beautifultrouble.org/directaction
MOVE implements, designs and pilots speci c support mechanisms together with social movements, based on their needs. Currently, it entails strategic support including funding for longer term sustainability, direct action grants, a rapid response fund for human rights defenders in danger and tailormade mentorship programs. Pilots currently include a structure for mass organisation through direct support of frontline activists and counter-surveil lance of phones. Based on our experiences from working in sensitive contexts, we have built a practice of tools and skills to ensure that those movements we work with are effective and safe.