Strategy
Instruction in nonviolent strategy
The Albert Einstein Institute – Provides free resources for understanding how social movements are effective. Click here for the list of publications. We recommend “From Dictatorship to Democracy” and “On Strategic Nonviolent Struggle.”
Beautiful Trouble – Provides information for developing strategic campaigns and how to evaluate your actions.
The Movement Action Plan – Lays out the stages of successful social movements and how to be an effective change agent.
Why Civil Resistance Works – Is a book of research from 100 years of social movements. It describes the key characteristics of a successful social movement.
Instruction in nonviolent practice
The Metta Center for Nonviolence – Provides instructional videos and other resources for understanding and practicing nonviolence. Check out Nonviolence for Beginners or the Roadmap Guide as a starting point. If you are skilled in nonviolence, you may consider joining the Shanti Sena international peace teams.
Organizing
Movement Building
InterOccupy – Provides free conference calls and organizing tools.
People’s Movement Assemblies – Provides resources for organizing general assemblies as a way for communities to make decisions. This teaches participatory democracy.
Project South – Provides a variety of toolkits for community organizing.
Story Based Strategy – teaches how to center your movement in storytelling and provides tools.
Training for Change – Provides tools that you can use in your everyday organizing, such as how to facilitate an effective meeting. They also provide trainings and retreats, which can be customized for your needs.
Action
Skills for Direct Action
The Backbone Campaign – Teaches and engages in artful activism. Check out the Take Action page, which provides instructions for tactics and the tools you need for your actions. Backbone also provides activist trainings.
The BDS Movement – This is a campaign calling for boycotts, divestment and sanctions to end Israeli Apartheid. Learn what you can do in your everyday life to support Palestinian rights.
The Civil Liberty Defense Center – Provides training and resources for activists who risk arrest such as Know Your Rights and Digital Privacy.
Divest From the War Machine – This is a new campaign to push institutions to take their investments out of the major weapons-makers.
The Economic Emergency Toolkit – Provides tips and resources for planning actions and getting people to show up.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation – In addition to fighting to protect our digital rights, EFF offers specific tools to protect your privacy. Here are basic tips that are good for everyone.
Mazaska Talks – This is an Indigenous-led campaign to pressure banks globally to move their money out of dirty energy.
Occupy Peace – Provides information for planning legal protests and advice on preventing infiltrators.
The Ruckus Society – Provides training in every aspect of direct action from strategy to planning a specific action to the skills needed in the various roles.
War Tax Resistance – This video explains how to stop paying the portion of your taxes that goes towards war. More resources are available at the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.
Creating New Systems
Economic Democracy
The Commons Abundance Network – This is a network of people collaborating to create a commons-based economy that is sustainable. You can join an existing project group or create your own.
The Debt Resister’s Operations Manual – This booklet explains what debt is, how to repair your credit and how to resist debt.
Democracy at Work – Provides resources for creating worker-owned cooperatives. We also recommend Grassroots Economic Organizing and the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives.
The Next System Project – This is a project of the Democracy Collaborative that provides research and information “to promote visions, models and pathways that point to a “next system” radically different in fundamental ways from the failed systems of the past and present and capable of delivering superior social, economic and ecological outcomes.” We also strongly recommend the Democracy Collaborative for tools and information for building community wealth and counters the current extractive economy.
The Participatory Budgeting Project – Teaches how to create a public budget planning process that allows the community to decide how their public dollars are used.
The Public Banking Institute – Provides information and resources to create a public bank at the municipal, state, regional and national levels.
Time Banks – Provides free software and instruction for setting up a local time bank.
Be the Media
Creative Commons Licensing – This is an alternative to copyright that permits information to be shared freely.
Muckrock – Provides assistance in obtaining Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and access to public data that has been obtained through FOIA requests.
Do you have or know of a resource that you want to share? Contact us at info@popularresistance.org.