Graduates of our Community Organising Fellowship played key leadership roles in the People’s Climate March in November. Around the world, three-quarters of a million people marched to encourage their leaders to take strong commitments to Paris. Marches were held in 50 cities and towns right around Australia. Their leadership speaks volumes about the impact of…
News & Updates
Featured News
September 13, 2015
Campaign Strategy Guide: ‘How to’ guides for organisers and activist educators
The Campaign Strategy Guide was the first instalment of the People Power Manual, a resource created for activist educators and facilitators. Campaign strategy needn’t be mystifying, lonely or stressful. Social movements become more powerful as more people are equipped to analyse their political context, consider paths to change and mindfully plan tactics. The Campaign Strategy Guide equips…
October 6, 2014
Community Organising graduate profile: Taegen Edwards
Taegen is a graduate of the 2014 Fellowship program and is currently a Community Organising Manager with Solar Citizens. Why are you passionate about Community Organising? Why is organising an important part of the solution in your community? A big part of the reason I love my job as an organiser at Solar Citizens is the people…
July 14, 2014
Grassroots action | Jane Stabb on sharing campaign skills in her community
At Environment Victoria, we are creating a structure to support local volunteer groups in our target areas with the objective of building and supporting a network of connected, engaged, and empowered community members who campaign actively to get great environment protections. While I was at the third workshop of the Community Organising Fellowship, I was…
July 14, 2014
Making public support visible: Glenn Walker on organisational renewal
The iconic Franklin River campaign – the cornerstone of our foundational story at the Wilderness Society – enlivened a budding movement and inspired a generation. It demonstrated that when passionate, committed people get organised and work together even the most entrenched power can yield. Over 30 years on from the historic High Court decision to…
Recent News
General News
December 1, 2016
New community organising guide launched
On Friday 25 November, we officially launched our new Community Organising training guide during the national FWD+Organise conference in Sydney. Even before the launch, word of mouth (and social media) had generated national and international interest. Already, the Guide is in 16 countries, including the US, UK and Canada, Ireland, Croatia, Belgium, Kenya, Aotearoa and…
General News
December 1, 2016
Strengthening our national network of community organisers
Since our Community Organising Fellowship kicked off in 2014, seventy-three passionate organisers have graduated. They’re hard at work building leader-full campaigns and movements right around Australia. Twenty-five graduates came together on Friday 25 November for our first graduates’ retreat, a weekend of conversation, analysis, celebration and connecting. The retreat was timed to coincide with the…
General News
November 1, 2016
Community Organising Guide: Our second training guide has been published!
“In a democracy there are only two types of power. There’s organised people and organised money. Organised money only wins when people aren’t organised.” — Benjamin Todd Jealous The Community Organising Guide is a unique resource for campaigners, community leaders and activist educators. It’s a collection of 39 process guides, 50 handouts 4 original case…
General News
July 13, 2016
Comm Org fellow profile: Adele Neale
Here by the beach in south-east Melbourne, we’ve just come out of a whirlwind 4-month election campaign in the electorate of Dunkley (as well as Deakin electorate in the east, where we worked with ACF). We are building community power through deep and ongoing organising in this area, where the vote is close in state…
General News
June 9, 2016
Comm org fellow profile: Cherry’s campaign for the reef
My name is Cherry Muddle and I’m the Great Barrier Reef Campaigner with the Australian MarineConservation Society. I work on the Fight for the Reef campaign in Airlie Beach – the heart of the Reef. The campaign is a partnership between the Australian Marine Conservation Society and WWF-Australia. Three years ago we launched the Fight for the Reef campaign in response…
General News
April 6, 2016
Learning to design and lead workshops with activists
A few weeks ago, I was invited by the convenor of the 350.org group in Sydney to lead a short workshop with their team. Their campaign to encourage universities and other institutions to divest from fossil fuels is building momentum. They’re actively recruiting and training new leaders, and wanted to build their skills and confidence to design and…
Featured
December 6, 2015
Community organising for climate justice
Graduates of our Community Organising Fellowship played key leadership roles in the People’s Climate March in November. Around the world, three-quarters of a million people marched to encourage their leaders to take strong commitments to Paris. Marches were held in 50 cities and towns right around Australia. Their leadership speaks volumes about the impact of…
General News
September 29, 2015
Launching our Campaign strategy guide: Instalment #1 of the ‘People Power’ manual
We launched our Campaign Strategy Guide last week at the Organise 2015 conference in Sydney.Co-author of the Guide, Jason MacLeod, described how many of the 24 how-to process guides contained in our new publication are being used by activists in Australia and the Pacific. Advocacy Coach and all-round movement builder Anita Tang gave the guide her…
General News
September 28, 2015
Assessing policy windows: our new campaign strategy process guide
If you’ve been a campaigner for more than a year or two, you will surely have experienced brick walls… campaigns that just don’t seem winnable. You’re focused on a real problem and have a sense of a policy solution, but your campaign just isn’t gaining traction. There’s some excellent research on the policy cycle and how…
General News
September 27, 2015
How many climate activists does it take to run a good open space?
– Mick Power, Membership and Campaign Coordinator, US Climate Action Network How many climate activists does it take to change a lightbulb? Or to change the world? How many facilitators does it take to run a successful open space session for 300 climate activists from across the US, to develop shared strategy for the Paris…
People Power Manual
People Power Manual
‘How to’ guides for campaigners, organisers and activist educators.
Official Channels
Official channels are things like grievance procedures, ombudsmen and courts. They are supposed to resolve problems and...