What is Organising?

“Community organising” is a term on more and more people’s lips these days. But what is it? And how can it be a part of strategies for large-scale social transformation?

Within social movements a crucial distinction has been made between mobilising and organising. Mobilising is focusing on engaging large numbers of people in quick actions. It relies on centralised decision making and allows people to self-select their level of involvement. In contrast, organising is aiming to cultivate relationships, agency and strategic autonomy, bringing people together to strategise, reflect, and grow, prioritising long-term capacity-building. Most effective groups combine both approaches and we will be reflecting on and exploring both in this training.

There are many different ways of thinking about organising within the ‘social change’ paradigm. Some of the conceptions we will be exploring are:

Community Organising: Aims to build power within communities, focusing on addressing local issues and injustices. It emphasises leadership development, relationship-building, and collective action.

Transformative Organising: A more expansive approach to organising that seeks not only to address immediate issues but also to transform underlying systems of power and oppression, and economic, political, and social structures that perpetuate the status quo and injustice. Early thinking on this practice has been defined by US-based organisers in “Demand Everything: Lessons from the Transformative Organising Model”.  Applications to the European context and the learnings and adaptations of this approach to organising are illustrated in “The power of Organising: Stories from Community Organising Campaigns Across Europe”.

Movement Building:  A broader approach that goes beyond specific campaigns or issues to build a sustained, interconnected ecosystem of organisations and networks working toward social transformation. Key aspects of Movement Building focus on developing shared visions and narratives, building alliances and networks between organisations, and creating responsive and agile structures that can adapt to changing contexts.

This training will be both rooted in theory, as well as offering a hands-on and very practical approach to how the skills of organising can be applied in the field. You don’t need to have had formal training in organising to get a lot out of this course. And if you are already an experienced organiser, this training is designed to help push your thinking about your practice further.

We will explore ideas and practices related to:

Theories of Change: How change happens in the world. Understanding systems and complexity as well as power and influence in today’s increasingly volatile and uncertain world. Exploring how individuals and organisations contribute to change.

Approaches to Organising: Looking at different traditions and practises from Community and Transformative Organising to Movement Building

Diversities of Strategy & Tactics: Combining organising and mobilising approaches in movement building processes, inclusive and intersectional practices as well as creative and regenerative methods.

The Role of the Organiser: Reflections on identity, positionality and aspects of inhabiting the ‘role’, as well as sharpening practical skills and tools.

Alliance building: Effective Organising (of whatever kind) is most successful when performed in resilient alliances. This course will explore the pathways to building strategic, meaningful, empowering relationships.

The aims of the training are:

• Build comprehension of different types of organising and associated practices
• Establish critical analysis of Systemic Change and Adaptive Strategies
• Think strategically in organising processes
• Develop key skills and learn applicable practices for organising
• Explore alliance building and acquire key tools such as movement mapping and networked organising.
  

Through a blend of participatory education and immersive learning you will:

• Build relationships, and learn from a wide range of activists across Europe 
• Acquire knowledge and have space to reflect on applications to your context
• Learn from case studies and other methods of experiential learning
• Encounter a wide range of methods, tools and facilitation approaches to enhance learning and accommodate people’s needs
• Focus on your learning journey to meet your learning objectives. 

Who is it aimed at?

Anyone involved in socially engaged action addressing ecological, political and social justice issues. We embrace a broad definition of activism, including: Resistance – action preventing further damage to ecosystems and social justice; Renewal – action focused on developing and creating alternatives for healthier societies and communities; and Building Resilience – action supporting increased resilience in communities to weather the uncertain times ahead.